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THE NEAR 



THE HEAVENLY HORIZONS 



MADAME DE GASPARIN 



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Earth by Heaven, and Heaven by changeful Earth 
Illustrated, and mutually endeared." 

Wordsworth 



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ALEXANDEK STRAHAN AND CO. EDINBURGH 

HAMILTON ADAMS AND CO. LONDON 

1862 

[The rigid of Translation is secured^] 



TQ.zz$7 

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EDINBURGH : 

PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE AND COMPANY, 

PAUL'S WORK. 

, - hanc 3 
"Weetern Ont. Univ. Libraf t 

APR 3 1940 



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CONTENTS. 



THE NEAR HOFJZON& 

PAGE 

INTRODUCTION, 3 

LISBTTE'S DREAM, ......... 6 

THE THREE ROSES, 26 

THE TILERY, 48 

THE HEGELIAN, . 67 

THE SPRINGS, 83 

A POOR BOY, 97 

THE GALLEY-SLAVE, 120 

THE DOVECOT, . . 128 

MARIETTA, 146 

THE SCULPTOR, 154 

THE ARBOUR, , . 165 

THE HEAVENLY HORIZONS. 

THE HEAVENLY HORIZONS, 177 

Part I. 

TO WHOM I SPEAK, 181 

OP WHOM I SPEAK, 196 

THE AUTHORITY ON WHICH I REST, ...... 202 

THE PARADISE WE PEAR, 221 



IV 



CONTENTS. 



Part II. 

PAGE 

THE SUPREME TYPE : A RISEN SAVIOUR, 231 

THE SLEEPLESSNESS OF THE SOUL, 242 

PERSONAL IDENTITY, 253 

THE ETERNITY OP LOVE, 265 

THE RESURRECTION OP THE BODY, 276 

Part III. 

THT WHOLE CREATION SIGHETH, 287 

THE COMING OF CHRIST, 296 

NEW HEAVENS AND NEW EARTH, ....... 303 



THE NEAR HORIZONS. 



THE NEAR HORIZONS. 




INTRODUCTION. 

" Una donna soletta, che si gia 
Cantando, ed iscegiiendo fior da fiore, 
Ond'era pinta tutta la sua via." 

—Dante. 

HE 'night is far spent; many of the stars that 
shone in the sky have disappeared behind the 
mountain, the dawn pales those that remain. 
My thoughts revert to the early hours of evening, and rest 
on some simple figures whose path my steps have crossed. 
From those hours rise spring-tide emanations, rise I know 
not what scents, what dewy freshness that revives my 
heart. The figures I speak of are not all young, not all 
beautiful ; no ; they have merely the charm of reality. 
Their sober, simple outline stands out after the manner of 
the old masters from a clear and transparent ground. 

I am one of those who love the things that are past ; 
things that, quitting as it were our terrestrial region, rise 
to mid-heaven in a limpid atmosphere that lends them an 
infinite charm. 

About to emerge into the brilliant light of day, I linger 
for an instant; my gaze follows shadows soon to be effaced; 
profiles, some frank and fair, others a little sad; these 



4 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 

singing on in their spring, those dreaming on in their 
winter; some full of mystery, others very simple, and 
such as we see every day. And there are landscapes too ; 
sometimes two trees and a few leaves, vividly green against 
the blue, like those in which Perugino framed his holy 
families ; sometimes the thick forest, the vigorous growth 
of the July grass, the woodland songs, the flowers in full 
blossom. 

It is all this that I would contemplate, muse on a little 
during that short uncertain hour which folds back its veil 
before the splendours of the morning. 

There is nothing here for utilitarians, nothing for so- 
called realists, for lovers of the dramatic, for acute con- 
noisseurs ; nothing, indeed, I believe, for any but me and 
those like me — dreamers, satisfied with little, whom a 
great poem scares, but a flower half-opened, a holiday bee, 
a rustic outline, can throw into infinite reverie. 

If this once begins, there is hardly any end to it. It is 
not a series of pictures, it is still less romance. What, 
then? Truly, I do not know. It is that unknown some- 
thing which sings within, the wide undulations of whose 
voice expand as we advance, and sometimes blend ideal 
melodies with the most common details of the most prosaic 
life. It is that something which is artist too \ whose pen- 
cil can, while our bodily eyes turn from the grocer's shop 
to the tavern at the corner, flash out upon us the green of 
the meadow, the darker green of the forest, the ruddy gold 
of the sunset, the pale gold of the sunrise, passing over the 
spirit of life with the spirit of poetry. And it is, besides, 
that hidden poet who, as we are moving on wearily through 
life as it has been made to us, keeps repeating in the 
depths of our soul strange words, words replete with wild 
harmony, words that the gentleman with whom you are 



INTRODUCTION. 5 

chatting would hardly understand, nay, that you yourself, 
alas ! in your common-sense business hours, would treat as 
mere fancies, although they charm you, soothe you, trans- 
port you into serene regions where you would live, where 
you would gladly die. 

It is just this that I have to impart to you. The hand 
will be inexpert, the voice often trembling ; the poor poet, 
frightened at his own boldness, will perhaps stop short; 
the play-bill is promising, the piece poor. What matters 
it ! The reader is the true author. I may stammer ; your 
genius will sing : I may let you fall on the way ; your 
imagination, light- winged messenger, will bear you further 
than my steps could reach. 

Every book is, in fact, a journey ; a journey in which 
we find little more than we ourselves bring; the richly 
provided, richly acquire. I do not possess very much ; if 
you have kindliness, some love for God's nature, the dower 
of capacity for simple pleasures, come, let us take our way 
through this meadow, by the side of that stream ; we two 
together, our fortune is made. 




LISETTE'S DREAM. 

jT was by that very meadow, and by that stream, 
I took my way, one fine May morning. 

The grass was thick and tall, the starry prim- 
roses were over, the blue clusters of the squill withered 
long ago, the last petals of the fruit-trees were lost in the 
thicket as they fell, — the summer gained the victory over 
the spring. But this had not been without some sharp 
encounters ', tussles, as our peasants say. 

The blackthorn, the first, had had many a tussle then 
with drifts of soon melted snow, the hawthorn with cool 
showers that soaked the red twigs of the hedges, the cuckoo 
and the blackbird with a return of cold winds blowing over 
the scarcely unfolded leaves ; but, spite of storm and frost, 
the April days — beautiful lengthening days, pressing back 
with both hands the shades of morning and evening — had 
marched on young, triumphant, crowned with lilacs ; while, 
at the touch of their fingers, the hedges, the apple-trees, the 
ground, burst into blossom. And now summer was at 
hand ; her warm breath was already felt on the buttercup- 
covered meadows ; while, from the neighbouring mountains, 
from the snowy summit of the Jura, came still a keen, re- 
viving breeze, the virgin kiss of the departing spring. 

In our country each flower in succession has its own 
absolute reign. The sun, looking through the windows of 
the fantastical dwellings assigned to him in almanacs — the 
sun, according as he inhabits the sign of the Earn, the Bull, 



LISETTE'S DREAM. 7 

the Twins, or the Scorpion, covers our valleys, far as eye 
can reach, with white crocuses, then yellow primroses, then 
hyacinths, then lilac-tinted cardamines, then golden ran- 
unculuses. There is almost always one sheet of colour, 
splendid in its uniformity. It is true that in March, by 
the hedge side, balmy violets and fumitories ; along the 
brooks, and at the foot of the oak-trees, rosy white anem- 
ones j do what they can to blossom in tufts. The observant 
eye may, indeed, detect them in their nests, but they do 
not affect the general aspect of the valley, which always 
presents a dazzling carpet of one single shade, till towards 
the end of June it is enamelled with every hue, radiant 
with every kind of brightness, each flower opening, display- 
ing itself, scattering fragrance on its own account. 

There is, indeed, in May — at the very time I was taking 
this particular walk — a short season when green is the 
dominant tone; a harsh, crude, uncompromising green, 
without any softening touch of red or yellow, or any deli- 
cate silvery light. This green is somewhat oppressive, I 
might almost say sad. 

It was so that morning. The grass I walked on had 
such a glaring brightness ; the leaves of the hedge, whether 
hawthorn leaves, sweetbrier, willow, or alder, were all so 
varnished and brilliant, you could hardly look at them. 
On the mountain side, the bright verdure of the beech so 
prevailed over the sombre foliage of the pines, spread so 
lustrously and positively on every side, rose so boldly up 
to the pasture-land, itself so decidedly verdant too, that, 
apart from the cupola of snow upon the very summit, one 
could see nothing but this intense green, which seemed to 
repress thought. 

And yet there were the walnut-trees, the great walnut- 
trees, which were not green. They, at least, protested; 



8 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 

opening out, at the extremity of their smooth, whitish 
branches, bunches of purple and aromatic leaves. 

Then there was the brook, whose perfectly pure waters 
ran over a now smooth, now stony bed, sometimes en- 
countering a little moss-covered block, round which they 
broke, singing those eternal songs that ears like mine could 
listen to by night and day. 

Then, again, there were the bees ; young bees, of a 
lighter brown, a more delicate velvet ; inexperienced, lost 
in some flower-chalice, intoxicated, and overtaken, far from 
the hive, by the dew and the evening chill. 

Ah ! how many of those thoughtless ones did I save, 
fishing them out from the eddies of the brook, in a large 
leaf or the hollow of my hand ! How many I collected at 
sunset, wings wet, benumbed, half dead, placing them in 
some warm shelter, safe from the lizard, or else on some 
dry bough looking to the east, that the early rays might 
restore them to life ! How many I took back to the hives, 
and tried to get them admittance there ! Alas ! it is the 
same with bees as with us ; the ladies of the hive came 
out, felt the intruder all over, turned her round and round, 
and pushed her out of their community. The more suffer- 
ing the creature, the more severe the reception ; while the 
latest comers, those belonging to the last swarm of the 
last hive, boldly thrust the victim through with their 
stings ; then, dragging her by her legs to the edge of the 
platform, let her fall into the field of death below, amidst 
the drones, their defunct husbands. 

Whether it was owing to the green or the drones, I know 
not; but that morning I went on my way sadly. The 
glory of the spring did nothing for me. 

Do you know hours when the demon of analysis, the 
bad angel of our age, brushes against you with his cold 



LISETTE'S DREAM. 9 

wings % Do you know what it is to explore your affec- 
tions, your thoughts, and to say of them all, What do they 
profit ? 

The young are more subject to this complaint than the 
old. Which of us has not descended those desolate slopes, 
has not seated himself weeping in that sterile valley, which 
the sun has forsaken, has not remained there, counting his 
wounds, finding a fatal pleasure in saying to himself that 
all is over, that happiness is wrecked, faith extinguished, 
faculties weakened, tenderness dead ; that life, like a faded 
flower, has let fall petal after petal, and that there is nothing 
more to be done but to let old age come, and then death. 

At such times it seems as though we were wander- 
ing in one of those ruined planets, those extinct worlds 
whose lurid light still traverses the sky. Then we see 
things as they are, or rather as they would be, if the won- 
drous brightness of day, if perfume, harmony, blue atmo- 
spheric depths were all taken away from us, and our earth 
left bare. Everything becomes dry, hard, resolvable into 
problems, the positive solution of which destroys our last 
illusions. The task which charmed me with its time- 
speeding magic, it has no use, teaches nothing, is worth 
nothing ! Those melodies which wafted me into realms of 
serenity, they are flat, monotonous, wearisome ! My pencil, 
nothing either ! My friends, my beloved, that image closest 
to the heart; oh, it is here that the abyss yawns; here 
there is dead silence, and the demon speaks in his doubt- 
ing voice : — Your father, your child, your wife ! you are 
their treasure, you are the breath of their soul, the days 
they live away from you are days of heaviness ; if you are 
late, they are anxious ; if you suffer, they are sad ; if you 
died, they would die too % No ! they would not die ; they 
could do without you ! You believe yourself essential, you 



10 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 

are not ; you believe that you give happiness, others would 
give more ; you think that were you taken out of their life, 
that life would be shattered. Not so. It would resume its 
course, would pass through other regions, other flowers, to 
blossom under other skies. The thought of you, passion- 
ately cherished at first, would recede towards the distant 
horizon, would remain suspended there, and only rare inter- 
vals and hours of sadness would lead them back to you. 

No one is indispensable to any other ; there is but one 
thing imperishable, and that is the need we have of being 
happy at any cost. 

We have more vitality than the hydra. Cut, cut away, 
lop off here and there, strew the ground with our limbs, 
leave only a bleeding trunk ; it will writhe, then it will 
stanch its wounds, then it will glide into some new path, 
under the leaves, amidst the grass, it will find some shady 
retreat, and it will live. 

This is worst of all, to own to ourselves that we can be 
mutilated and yet survive ; that after such severance the 
wound can close ; after the thunderbolt the sky grow clear ; 
that with the heart torn out we may walk on without any 
unbearable pain; that failing a life interpenetrated with 
love, we can create for ourselves a narrow quiet existence, 
where mere mind or matter prevails according to individual 
temperament, that the day may come when we honestly 
confess to be better off after than before the storm, and to 
journey on more comfortably alone ; a day when a horrible 
egotism may sit a victor on the ruins of all our past. This 
is the supreme misfortune ; to find ourselves at last alone, 
self-contemplating, self-satisfied, self-conscious that self is 
our all in alL This is the source of mortal disgust and 
sovereign disdain. 

I was going along, a bitter smile upon my lips, a bitter 



LISETTE'S DREAM. 11 

indifference at my heart, reduced to despair, as negation 
after negation fell on me like blows from an axe; when I 
chanced to raise my eyes and saw the country, saw it 
magnificent, exuberantly fresh ; saw the barley fields that 
promised harvest, the young bunches of grapes that pro- 
mised the vintage ; saw the tufted fields, the orchards, 
laden with fruit, the bees and the butterflies flying off in 
quest of pillage, the peasant going to his work. The earth 
is beautiful, I said to myself, the earth is good ! Then I 
raised my glance up the mountain side, higher than the 
beeches, higher than the pines, higher than the chalets, 
than the pastures, up, up to the snow, up to that sparkling 
cupola whose white outline sharply cuts the deep blue sky, 
up to that region of Paradise ! ye heavens, ye are 
great and glorious ! My God, thou art the mighty One, 
the Eternal ! — Love ! It is only that which I have been 
ignoring all this while ! The love of God, the love which 
came down to us, the love which defies time and space, the 
immortal, imperishable love Thou hast put into the heart of 
man ! 

Our years will pass, our faculties fade, our loved ones 
depart ; nothing of us will remain save poor old withered 
bodies that drag themselves into the sunshine ; all will 
die. No, all lives, love though buried beneath the snows 
of age, love glows unextinguished. It breathes in wordless 
prayers, it looks back to cherished memories, forward to 
the land of promise. The cheeks are wrinkled, the lips 
wear a smile the vigorous call childish, the eye is dull ; we 
seem to have merely a pale effigy, aimlessly wandering 
amidst a new generation. Do not think so; below the 
surface there are tears, strong hopes, there is a whole vast 
world, there is a human heart, there is the Infinite. 

Nothing that has ever truly lived is lost, nothing use- 



12 TEE NEAR HORIZONS. 

less ; not a sigh, a joy, or a sorrow which has not served 
its purpose. Our tears are numbered, the fragrance of our 
innocent pleasures mounts heavenward as a sweet-smelling 
savour. Let us take courage ; honest labour, upright 
thoughts, healthy emotions endure. Let us give, love, 
become as little children, so shall we reach self-forgetful- 
ness, that supreme possession, that dominion over the uni- 
verse. 

Yes, so it is ; in our day there are young people who 
are old, . having exhausted everything ; who are indifferent, 
sceptical, weary as a traveller at nightfall. And there are 
old people who are young, ready-witted, with sparkling eyes 
and energetic hearts, easily pleased, open to innocent enjoy- 
ments. And such as these, — this spring blossoming so 
near death, this union of simplicity and native dignity, this 
green intellect, this indulgent benevolence, this ready cheer- 
fulness, have a charm for my nature which almost excites 
emotion. 

It was just such an old woman as this that I was going 
to see. 

Before entering the village, I stopped a little on the hill. 
On one side, the valley stretched out in its green attire 
very far below to the blue lake; further still, full of 
vapour, to the white Alps. On the other side, behind the 
village, the mountain sloped down to the highest houses, 
all dotted with beech and fir, with orchards intermixed ; 
and as I had climbed to some height, I found those trees 
still blossoming which had done flowering below. 

There was no longer that glaring green which had thrown 
me into such a strange train of thought. The dome of the 
apple-trees rounded itself rosy-white, relieved here and there 
with crimson buds ; the pear-trees rose in silver pyramids, 
immaculate, almost hard in their brilliancy. There was an 



LISETTE'S DREAM. 13 

infinite variety of hues. The branches, laden with gar- 
lands, surrounded with humming bees, stooped down into 
the grass ; the topmost flowers kissed the lowest ; not a 
leaf dared to shew. The hawthorn displayed all around 
its small stars spotted with purple stamens ; through its 
gaps you saw roofs ; bright panes of glass ; and on the hill, 
near those lazy rocks sunning themselves up there, blackened 
spaces shewed where the woman had been beating out the 
hemp last autumn. 

The goats were just setting out for the mountains; little 
boys driving them along the wood-paths ; you could hear 
their bells ; a kid, perched in the middle of a bush, gave 
a startled glance at the grand procession, then returned 
eagerly to nibble the young shoots about him. The pea- 
sants were all at work in the country ; the village was 
deserted. 

How charming a village is ! how charming those foun- 
tains, with wooden basins ! if the village be rich, with stone 
ones, with the water trickling down and running over. 

In the evening, the cows come heavily by, drink slowly, 
and return to their stalls, scattering sparkling drops from 
their cool, wet muzzles. The pleasant smell of hay is 
wafted from the open barns. Women come and go, and 
wash vegetables at the fountain ; men, seated before their 
houses, sharpen their scythes, and fill the air with metallic 
notes ; children sing and dabble, and heap up handfuls of 
fine sand ; hens seek their food with that little, anxious, 
monotonous cluck, that protest of a good housewife, who 
sighs each time she puts by a millet seed ; cocks, proudly 
thrown back on their tails, send forth a warlike cry, which 
gets repeated by all the sultans near. 

But on the day I speak of, it was morning ; the village 
was silent ; you only heard beneath a heap of fagots, in 



U THE FEAR HORIZONS. 

some mysterious corner, the self-complacent cackling of the 
laying hen. 

To reach Lisette's house, (it was to her I was going,) I 
had to pass through a barn. Now, barns give me untold 
satisfaction ; I feel at home in them ; my heart expands. 
My hand is scarcely on the latch of the little door, with its 
two separate halves ; my foot has hardly touched the floor, 
covered with newly-mown grass; I have hardly inhaled 
the perfume of last year's hay, heaped up on both sides of 
me, when I feel a perfect flood of happiness. Am I re- 
lated to the cattle ? Perhaps so ; to those oxen, for in- 
stance, whose noses are pushed right and left through the 
open rack, into the hay-loft, enjoying as well as I the sweet 
smell of the new grass. I have not the least objection to 
claim kinship ; but so it is, that my heart leaps again, and 
I thank God, who has made meadow, skies, oxen, barns, 
and me. Everything is beautiful, everything is wondrous ! 
Life is an ineffable gift : death, a triumph. Men are 
brothers : the poor, precious friends. To give pleasure, 
to dry tears, — it is heaven on earth ! Ah ! for once good- 
bye to analysis ; this is not to be defined, scarcely to be 
understood ; it is a sudden radiance, the illumination of 
the soul ; it is a hymn that bursts out at once in all direc- 
tions. I have often thought that woods, fields, nests> 
moss-covered hollows, sent up just such an anthem to the 
Lord. 

Having passed through the barn, here we are at Lisette's, 
in her dark, flagged kitchen, with a large chimney, into 
which the fowls sometimes adventure themselves ; then we 
pass in her bright, cheerful room, with a window looking 
on the street. It is here Lisette is to be found. 

Close to the lighted stove, (for it is still cold, and one is 
glad of fires in the morning, before the sunbeams shine 



LISETTE'S DREAM. 15 

through the cloudy panes of glass,) — close to the stove, sits 
Lisette's old husband, half sleeping, half musing, his hands 
resting on the iron pot about to boil, his head on his hands, 
his white knitted cap drawn over his eyes. 

Generally, when he sees me, Lisette's husband rises, 
stretches himself, scratches his forehead, says — " One must 
be looking after the cows," and goes away. 

I think that his wife and I — taken in combination, that 
is to say — weary him. His wife is a thinker : he can 
excuse this, as long as she is silent; when I arrive, we 
talk. This worthy man, who, during the whole of his 
fourscore years, has discerned little more than the four 
seasons succeeding each other ; hay-time, harvest, vintage, 
then ploughing and sowing, then finally death, repose, not 
to say annihilation, — this good man of ours mistrusts us. 
He perceives vaguely that we speak a strange language ; 
thoughts stir there which disquiet him, questions that 
embarrass ; a certain consciousness of inferiority comes 
over him, — he never has it at other times. The humble 
old woman has never been aware of the keen intelligence, 
the depths of thought within her. " Stuff and nonsense !" 
mutters the good man to himself; opens the door, and 
disappears. 

Lisette, as well as her husband, has run her fourscore 
years or thereabouts. Lame of one leg, but erect and well 
made, there she is on her old, straight-backed arm-chair. 
Pretty children — her grandchildren — surround her, f ormid- 
able hunches of cake in hand. "Just go and play out 
there in front," says she ; and they disappear, like a flight 
of starlings. 

There is nothing now in the room but the bed with 
chintz curtains, with, great blue branches, on a red ground ; 
some walnut chairs, well polished; the stove, the table 



16 THE FEAR HORIZONS. 

with turned legs, the great press, carved in a former age, 
and the old woman seated near the window, close to her 
pot of green marjoram, close to her rose geranium which 
bushes out in a cracked earthen pan. 

Poor as are the adjuncts, the figure is charming. Slender, 
as I said, rather thin, with noble features, a pale com- 
plexion, colourless without being withered; gray hair 
almost hid under a cap of the thick lace our great-grand- 
mothers used to wear ; black eyes, as young as they were 
at twenty, soft, limpid eyes, which look into, and allow 
you to look into the soul. A smile completes the face. 
It is not an inadvertant, it is not a triumphant smile ; it is 
a smile in which blend such freshness, such exquisite deli- 
cacy, such sweet graciousness, that, once seen, it floats 
eternally in the memory. I shall be laughed at, but I have 
never seen more than one mouth that reminded me of 
Lisette, and that was the mouth of the Joconda. Lisette's 
had the same sudden brightness, and ineffable fascination, 
minus the wild flash, plus the angelic goodness. 

Lisette was a spiritualist • there are such in villages. 
She had been an excellent manager in her day ; had baked, 
fed her cattle, worked hard in hay-time. She had taken 
her part in the vintage, wielded the rake, dug the garden, 
spun enough to fill all the presses in her cottage from top 
to bottom. On washing-days, the hedges round were rich 
with her treasures ; no one more apt to labour, more pru- 
dent as to expense, but while her arms were employed her 
brain was active. And now that all she could do to amuse 
herself was to mend clothes, or wind thread, thought had 
got the upper hand. 

Lisette had a soul; she was conscious of it, nay, she 
was anxious about it. This is not common in our days, in 
the country any more than in towns. Lisette belonged 



LISETTE'S DREAM. 17 

to that austerely-brought-up generation, kept under by their 
fathers — grand, grave men, who governed by a look, with- 
out waste of words. They had strong natures, and lived 
soberly in their sheltered nooks. No network of good 
roads joined, as now, hamlets to villages, villages to cities. 
Local papers had scarcely an existence. Ten years might 
pass without a new book drifting into their dwellings. 
Nevertheless, the peasant read on Sunday winter nights ; 
read the Bible, that history of nations, that philosophy of 
the neart, that divine poetry, that speech of God to man ; 
and he made his children read it, their little fingers follow- 
ing each word, and that generation, growing up thus be» 
neath the shadow of Judea's palm-trees, in direct relation 
to the God of heaven, fed on faith, early subject to duty; 
that generation had a character at once gentle and coura- 
geous, calm and reflective, poetical and ideal, such as our 
age most certainly will not transmit to its children. 

Lisette had grown up under that system, had breathed 
the very air of the East. For her, Ruth and Naomi, 
Sarah, Moses, and Eachel who would not be comforted, 
were personages more living, more real than the great 
Napoleon and his twelve marshals. 

She had no very distinct recollection of the Revolution 
of '89 ; its terrible echoes had but faintly shaken the 
mighty wall of the Jura. All the noise made in France, 
the days of July ; many other glorious days ; insurrec- 
tionary cannonades ; popular cry of a Republic ; acclama- 
tions of the Empire, — all these died away on the moss of 
the forests, in the thick tangle of the beech-trees. The 
winter blasts through the pines had a louder voice, an 
eternal wail that prevailed over them all. 

Above the beautiful region she inhabited, and beyond 
the limits of her actual life, a world had opened out to 

£ 



18 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 

Lisette, even from her earliest days. It was the Hebrew 
world. There the camels and caravans of the Ishmaelitish 
merchantmen passed through the desert; there Hagar 
wept under the palm-tree ; there the transparent waters of 
the Ked Sea stood on a heap ; there more golden sheaves 
and richer ears of corn waved on the fields of Bethlehem 
beneath a softer breeze which had kissed the pomegranates 
in blossom. There, too, smoked Mount Sinai ; there stood 
Moses, his face bright with mysterious radiance, breaking 
the tables of the law before the dancing and delirious 
people. 

Even as a child, when she used to take the cows to feed 
in the forest glades, the wild strawberries having been 
once gathered, and small gardens planted here and there, 
Lisette would sit down beneath some spreading pine, on 
the smooth surface made by its falling spikes, her eyes 
wandering from the black to the brindled cow, and in that 
wood-enclosed pasture she would begin to dream. She 
dreamed of Jacob's flocks, of Leah, of the wondrous 
ladder; with the intense gaze of her soul fixed on the 
depths of past ages, deriving thence the simple faith, the 
fresh purity of the time when man was young upon the 
earth. She spoke to God ; God spoke to her. 

Had an angel, palm in hand, appeared before her there 
under the great pine, it would not have surprised her ; she 
would have prostrated herself; would humbly have laid 
her basket of strawberries at his feet. Oh, if it might but 
have been ! 

How often Lisette had steadily contemplated the in- 
finite sky, to catch some golden beam descending on her 
straight from Paradise ! If the juniper bush that shadowed 
her strawberry plants had suddenly kindled with super- 
natural flame, Lisette would have approached as did Moses; 



LISETTE'S DREAM. 19 

putting her shoes from off her feet, she would have received 
the divine command with a simple heart. 

Was Lisette then a visionary 1 By no means ; she had 
too much common sense for that. With her bodily eyes she 
never saw anything but the fields, the cows, and the blue 
sky overhead ; but she believed, moved, and lived calm and 
thoughtful in the realm of faith. 

Her piety had a touch of austerity and timidity ; there 
was a reserve about her which rather reminded you of the 
women of the Old Testament than of the New. She had 
a great fear of offending God ; she loved from afar, very 
humbly, reverence almost veiling love. Brought up rather 
on the precepts of Moses than the revelation of Christ, you 
would have taken her for one of the Israelitish women who 
followed Miriam when, sounding the cymbal with a tri- 
umphant hand, she celebrated Pharaoh's defeat. Or again, 
she resembled that Shunammite intent on hospitably receiv- 
ing the servant of the Lord : modest, with burning heart be- 
neath all her reserve, who, when her son died, laid him on 
the prophet's bed, then boldly went to seek the man of 
God, and say, " Did I desire a son of my lord 1" 

Lisette's serious aspect, serious and serene, recalled those 
times. She possessed fervour, judgment, veneration; be- 
neath her gray hairs the ingenuity of her girlhood ; a clear 
mind that saw death coming, a delicate conscience, that 
mere honesty did not satisfy ; a native intelligence always 
turning over grave problematical questions. She teased no 
one, nor agitated herself ; everything in her was sober and 
sagacious ; only when she spoke of her end, her smile was 
rather sad, and with a most loveable shake of her head, she 
would say — " Well, I hope indeed — but can God really for- 
give me 1" 

Now, Lisette's sin, you may well believe, was no crime ; 



20 THE FEAR HORIZONS. 

it was tlie sin of us all — your sin, alas ! and mine ; petu- 
lance, a warm temper, a few hasty words, many years spent 
without much thought of God ; a heart unapt to lay hold 
on Him ; easily turned away. 

The majority call this virtue. Not so Lisette ; she saw 
things too clearly. Her searching, logical mind was not 
one to be lured by a toy, or satisfied with a show. H 
diverted a moment, it was sure to return. 

lisette had never trifled with that deep need of holiness, 
that thirst after truth which kindles sooner or later in all 
elect' souls. She was incessantly occupied in contemplating 
the mystery of death, and of what comes after it. 

" Do this and live," cried to her, from the summit of Sinai, 
the voice that thundered amidst the lightnings. " Only be- 
lieve !" said the voice which speaks from the bleeding cross. 

Lisette believed, hoped, loved ; but her pale face, turned 
towards the desert, bore the impress of a holy terror ; her 
heart dared not expand ; she sat trembling on the threshold 
of Eden, and sometimes saw the flaming sword of the 
cherubim turned against her. 

It was of this we were conversing. 

She shewed me the awful Jehovah ; I pointed her to 
the God of Abraham : she spoke to me of sin ; I spoke to 
her of pardon : she said to me, I have erred too much j I 
said to her, He has suffered more. 

Do not be alarmed, I am not going to treat you to 
theology ; not that I despise it, but I should be awkward 
at it, — Lisette, too. For my part I hold in reverence all 
who lead a life of thought, theologians as well as others. 
To eat, drink, sleep, dress well, and to-morrow die, has 
never prepossessed my fancy much,— nor Lisette's either. 
To go through life like a great burly drone, knocking up 
against flowers, burying his proboscis in their cups, with- 



LISETTE' S DREAM. 21 

out looking or wondering at anything, without even in- 
haling the perfume of the blossoms he pierces, then, when 
evening comes, to die congealed beneath the leaves, or to 
be killed in a matter-of-fact way by a bee who has done 
with hirn,— whatever may be said for it, neither Lisette 
nor I find any sense or any poetry in a course like this. 
But dreamers— I do not mean by this empty dreamers ; I 
mean the dealers with ideas, those who go digging into 
some rich vein, deep down in the mine, or soar on daring 
wing beyond the skies,— these, however poor their condi- 
tion or their outward man, we — Lisette who knows none 
of them, and I who know but few — hold these to be true 
sages, great poets. In fact, it is just they who take the 
world in tow. Not easy-going people, elastic, satisfied with 
themselves and with all else, because seeing little beyond 
their particular peck of oats; but souls with vigorous 
griefs and mighty joys, men of the day-time, who want 
light everywhere, who prefer suffering to a truth-haunted 
sleep, who feel themselves travellers, pilgrims, wrestlers, 
always under arms, on the march, in the battle; often 
bruised, harassed, losing courage, but sometimes visited 
by such fulness of joy, believing so boldly what they do 
believe, reigning so absolutely in the realm of soul, sowing 
so richly the soil they tread, conquering so triumphantly 
the adverse circumstances barking at their heels, that as 
we see them jDass we feel that they are indeed the masters, 
the living men, and all others slaves, dead ! 

I say all this to explain Lisette to you. She was a do- 
mestic creature, easy to live with, peaceful, smiling, espe- 
cially to children ; a superficial observer would have taken 
her for the type of serenity. But inwardly in a very fer- 
ment of thought, satisfied with difficulty, never satisfied 
with false reasoning. And as she knew nothing of society, 



22 THE FEAR HORIZONS. 

politics, or science, the great problem of Eternity hung 
ever motionless before her, one side lit by faith, the other 
shadowed by doubt. 

" I am sad," said Lisette to me. " Listen ; you will 
laugh, but I have had a dream." 

" Dreams are liars," answered I, foolishly enough. 

" Oh, dear no ! Dreams are not all true, I know, yet 
Joseph dreamed ; Pharaoh saw the seven fat, then the 
seven lean kine come out of the rushes of the river ; it was 
God who made him see them." 

" Yes, God can employ" 

" The Lord has many messengers," she broke in ; then 
she shook her head. " It has left a gloom upon me." 

" Come, tell it me, Lisette." 

" You will laugh ; but it 7 s no matter, I am going to tell it. 

" I was walking in a meadow, towards evening ; the sun 
was down, the plants drooped, clouds of dust rose from the 
road, — a wide, smooth road ; much quality went along it, 
coaches, riders, merchants, gentlemen, men walking behind 
their cows, poor people, too — a crowd like a fair. They all 
went one way ; I did not trouble myself about where it led, 
did not seem much to care, it was as though I understood 
without knowing — I am tiring you." 

"Not at all." 

" Old people are slow." 

" Take your time." 

" I had not chosen that road, yet I went with the rest. 
I walked on the grass easily enough, though I was in a 
great hurry. 

" On one side, under the thorns, I saw a rough path ; 
one of those mountain tracks full of brambles and stones, 
felled trees that one had to stride over, roots on a level 
with the ground in which the foot caught. There was no 



LISETTE'S DREAM. 23 

crowd there ; every now and then some heavily-laden 
traveller, some woman, looking harassed and sad. They 
sat down, or rather all but fell ; then they looked to the 
top of the hill, took courage, rose, settled their baggage 
better on their shoulders, and bending under it, dragged 
on amongst the stones. 

" The others, those on the highway, had not taken any 
notice of me ; these gave me sad looks, but said nothing. 
I was uncomfortable ; it seemed as though they were 
mourning over my fate. As for me, badly off as they were, 
I did not pity them, never thought of doing so. 

" I said to myself, Suppose I go to them ! I did try. 
I went aside, and got upon the path; the stones rolled 
down. I felt weary, as if I had been beaten ; I hurt my 
foot against a pebble, and returned to the meadow. Then 
those in the path looked at me more sadly than before, 
and went on. 

" I had a weight at my heart. But evening was closing 
in ; there was nothing for it but going on, though as I went 
I trembled. A fear came over me. All at once it broke 
upon me that we were all going towards death. Then I 
tried to get back into the path ; but there was no longer 
any path, any travellers, only the great green meadow 
stretching far as eye could reach, and I was walking alone 
in the middle of it. 

"I beg your pardon !" 

Lisette was in tears ! Then she recovered. 

"At the end of the great meadow, I saw a beautiful 
dwelling ; a square house, very large, very high, not one 
side larger or higher than the other. This house was of 
gold, bright as the sun at noon ; the grass went close up to 
the walls ; the setting sun shone through the clear windows, 
and fell upon it. 



U TEE NEAR HORIZONS. 

" A great rush of joy came over me ! I was happy ! No 
one had told me so, but I knew quite well that this dwell- 
ing was the Paradise of God. When I came close to it, I 
looked for the door ; there was none on that side ; there 
were only the large windows, with their bright panes, 
transparent as water, the red sunset darting through them. 
I went round the house ; no door. I went round again ; 
none. There was only the grass and the windows. I felt, 
searched about. Fear came over me again. At last I 
returned to the front, and looked up. Behind one of the 
windows of clear glass, I saw an old woman like myself, 
only handsomely dressed in black silk, with white hair, 
and a severe, though sweet look, sitting up and knitting. 
She went on knitting, without seeing me. She looked 
very happy. I cried out, or seemed to do so. Then she 
turned towards me. ' You have made a' mistake,' she said ; 
* you did not take the right road. You will not get in, 
my daughter.' Then, with a calm face, she took to her 
knitting again ; and as for me, I fell dead." 

You are inclined, perhaps, to laugh ; if you had seen 
Lisette, you would not have been so. She was pale ; fear, 
that fear of God which hath torment, had got hold of her. 
She turned and re-turned her dream in her mind. She 
could not treat it lightly ; she was too pious for that. She 
could not pray; the servile dread of the slave paralysed, 
her heart. 

" Lisette/' I said, " you have told me a dream ; I will 
tell you a story, a very short one. 

" One spring day in Judea, just as the corn was ripening, 
a crowd was coming out of the city. With much tumult 
and loud cries, they were leading three men to execution. 
Of these three, two had killed, stolen, pillaged ; they were 



LISETTE' S DREAM. 25 

thieves : the other had announced God's pardon; it was 
Jesus. 

" They nailed them to the cross. One of the criminals 
insulted Jesus ; the other, suddenly struck, said — 'Dost 
thou not fear God % as for us, we are punished justly ; but 
this man V Then turning to Jesus, — - Lord, remember 
me!' He got in safe, Lisette ! What road, then, had he 
taken?" 

Lisette kept a solemn silence ; a divine light dispelled 
the shadows on her brow. 

" Neither the highway, nor that terrible mountain path, 
had he, Lisette?" 

Lisette looked at me ; her beautiful black eyes shone ; 
the sweet, pure smile played round her mouth. " He be- 
lieved," she said. 

That day we philosophised no more. 

Her husband came back ; the children ran in ; the hens 
popped their beaks in at the half-opened door. Lisette 
returned to her winding ; I to the road that led down into 
the valley. 

At the present time, many winters have passed since 
Lisette entered the golden house. 

Does she knit on, from age to age, impassive in her 
beatitude, by the side of that matron with the silver hair ? 
I do not think so ; I believe her living, active in heaven as 
on earth. All anxiety over, immutable happiness, supreme 
life, reveal their mysteries to her ardent souL 




THE THKEE KOSES. 

HBEE roses early faded on earth; three rosea 
which, bloom in heaven. 

They were three ; their name was Rose ; they 
died before they were twenty. 

They belonged to the same family; were, I believe, 
consins ; but they hardly, if at all, knew each other, be- 
cause of their difference of age. "When one was being 
carried to the grave, the other, flaxen-haired and laughing, 
was playing in her spring-time along the roadside. 



I saw the first when she was quite a child. She lived 
with her father, her mother, and a brother younger than 
herself, in a farm on the border of a wood. 

We shall not have to go far into the wood. I only want 
you to know that the farmhouse was spacious, well-built, 
turned full towards the east; with a roof that projected 
like a cowl, as though the better to protect the family; 
that a splendid row of hives filled the garden with their 
humming ; that the garden itself had rose-trees that were 
a perfect spectacle, red poppies, heart' s-ease, marigolds; 
that the vine, with its golden leaves, had crept to the 
granary; and that the wood of planted oak-trees — vener- 
able oaks, their stems lost in the coppice below — was the 
home of all the bees in the country. They formed a great 



THE THREE ROSES. 27 

aviary, open to the sky, — where, from daybreak, blackbirds 
whistled, and tomtits, chaffinches, wrens, robin-redbreasts, 
and the whole tribe of vocalists, kept up such a chatter 
that the nightingale, though he bred there, had some diffi- 
culty in maintaining his supremacy. However, when he 
did set to in good earnest, you heard no one else. He 
filled all the forest nooks with his loud gushes of song. 

There is one exquisite hour in an oak-wood; that par- 
ticular moment in spring when the underwood is all green, 
while the old trees are not yet fully out. At their feet 
there is an inveterate entanglement of honeysuckle, elder- 
bushes, clematis, — all vigorous, full-grown, in the first glory 
of their first leaves, with tall plants intermingled; while 
above, at a great height, spreads the light dome of the 
mighty trees. Look where you will, it is luminous ; there 
is above you, rather a green cloud — an emerald transpa- 
rency — than decided verdure. The very atmosphere is 
green ; green seems floating in the air, blending with the 
blue of the sky. There are none of the intense tones of 
summer ; none of the warm colouring, the broad, massive 
touches of July; everything is distinct, everywhere there 
is shade ; and against the soft green of the young foliage 
you can trace the bold outlines of the dark trunks and the 
gnarled branches of the oaks. 

In these woods, Kose and her brother gathered glorious 
nosegays ; in April, of the periwinkle, which covered the 
ground with its blue stars; in May, of the lily of the 
valley, which hides itself beneath the brambles, and grows 
in the shade over the roots of the old oaks. Oh, delight 
of being there well concealed ! of creeping along in spite 
of a thousand scratches ! and while the nightingale dwells 
upon some wondrous note, all the other birds warbling too, 
of looking for, step by step, then suddenly coming upon, a 



28 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 

very show of select treasures ! " Are not there lots of 
them V " Shall I shout to my brother ? " Conscience de- 
liberates ; meanwhile the hand is busy; it gathers, gathers. 
There they are, those darling lilies ! pure, modest flowers ! 
There they are ! very straight, very strong ; with their 
little reversed urns, the lowest in blow, the highest in bud. 
There are others on the mountains; delicate, differently 
shaped, more ethereal in their perfume ; but they are not 
the true lily of the valley; the genuine, the old-fashioned, 
the lily of the valley of our songs, of our grandmothers. 
So they are left ; the wood-pea too, with its changing 
colour, the orchis, everything but the lilies are left. The 
fingers can scarcely close over the bunch gathered. "What 
a smell of spring ! the very ideal of freshness ! You would 
say that it contained all the magic of the month of May; 
the clear sky, the young foliage, the birds' song. 

Little shouts are interchanged. 

" Have you found some ?" 

" Yes." 

"A good place?" 

Silence. 

There is no pursuit where selfishness shews itself more 
plainly than in this pursuit of lilies of the valley. One is 
silent. To say no, would be a falsehood ; to say yes, would 
be to lose one's prize. So we make all the haste we can ; 
if scrupulous, we murmur something very vague indeed ; 
and the treasures secured, we slip away, far away, to some 
other fragrant hiding-place, all covered with white bells. 

In this manner Rose went through the wood; and when 
she reached the high ground, where the lilies do not ven- 
ture, she got uneasy, and called her brother, who came, 
with trousers torn, and three poor sprigs in his hand. 

"All that !" she said, and then shewed her great bunch. 



THE THREE ROSES. 29 

"Oh!" sighed the little fellow; and his poor flowers 
dropped from his fingers. Then they walked on that short, 
smooth, elastic mountain sod, which spreads itself out, as 
it were, at random. 

This open ground belongs to no one in particular ; it is 
a common, where on Sundays old and young walk, in the 
week, sheep graze, — a hall of verdure, shaded here and 
there by some ancient oak ; neither field nor meadow, only 
turf, trees, mountain flowers ; a place of which no one 
says, " It is mine," " It is John's," " It is Peter's," — it is 
the domain of the poor, of children, of all ; it is the one 
little spot which Poetry, driven out by potatoes, may claim 
as her own. 

Eose wandered there, arranging her nosegay; her 
brother trotted and gambolled about. Neither of them 
looked at the Alps on the horizon, or the blue lake in the 
distance, motionless in the midst of its green cup. They 
did not listen to the bells that were ringing — that grave 
harmony, dilating in the air ; they hardly felt the morning 
breeze careering over the country ; the sloping turf, that 
grew wilder, and began here and there to be dotted with 
pines ; the great mountain blocks, the hamlets surrounded 
with orchards ; the scattered houses of various styles ; — all 
this, that would have delighted a painter, they were hardly 
aware of. They walked on at random, wrapped in a ray of 
soft yellow light, apparently unconscious of the magical 
scene around. 

And yet it is these May delights ; this free breath of 
the woods ; it is the scent of the pine, the perfume of the 
lily ; the skies of our valleys, shut in by the peaks of our 
Alps, the dark sides of Jura, — it is all this, on the plains 
of laughing Italy, which rises to the heart of our sons, and 
causes them to desert or to die ; it is this, too, which, in 



30 THE FEAR HORIZONS. 

the midst of cities, comes and whispers to them I know 
not what enchanted words, which tarnish all the luxury 
around, and make their tears flow. 

On Sunday, the court of the 'old manor-house was 
opened to the village children. Eose and her brother ran 
off there in haste, through vineyards and meadows. That 
was the place for amusement ! Good people, those people 
of the manor-house ; no pride about them, — visionary, let- 
ting every one have his own way. 

The children in troops — there were at least sixty of them 
— seated on benches, under the shade of great plane-trees, 
their legs hanging down, and swinging to and fro to mark 
the rhyme, sang plaintive songs. Verse followed verse — 
simple, and rather sad — accompanied by the monotonous 
music of two fountains ; then the children darted off all at 
once, like a flight of starlings, no one knew why, and 
formed great circles, enclosing the whole court, singing 
catches — "Cest le chevalier du guet ; Jest un beau chdteau," 
&c. — which were still plaintive, so surely is there melan- 
choly at the root of all things, even of pleasure. Suddenly 
the circle would break up ; then came wild races, screams, 
joy in simple existence. 

Eose, a little frightened, played by herself in a corner, 
making discreet little springs and jumps of her own. Her 
brother threw himself into the midst of the games and 
dances, and, shaking his curly head, bounded as the lambs 
bound amongst the wild thyme. 

When evening came, all went home again ; the others in 
troops, these two alone. Eose and her brother passed 
timidly, for it was nightfall — under the white church, 
under the cemetery. The moon, shining in the sky, ac- 
companied them with her soft glance. They quickened 
their step as they got near the wood. 



THE THREE ROSES. 31 

Here are the gardens ! here are the beans ! here are our 
cabbages ! They recovered their voices ; nay, the brother 
returned home like a hero, bellowing out in his deepest 
tones some rough vintage song. Once at home, there was 
the bright fire, the mother, and they recounted all the 
wonders of the manor-house. 

One Sunday, neither the brother nor the sister came. 

The boy was stretched out in his little bed, at the 
foot of his parents' large one. Beside him sat his father, 
gloomy, hollow-eyed, and speechless. The mother was on 
her knees, raising her child. Rose looked on, wondering 
and silent. 

Death was hovering round the child's brow. His com- 
plexion was not livid, his features were not drawn; but 
by the glory spread over the face, by the eye swimming 
in ethereal brightness, you knew well that he was about 
to go. 

"Mother, mother!" he said, looking through the open 
window at the sky. His mother leaned forward, and 
grew pale. " Mother, I see beautiful angels ! Do you 
see them, father?" Then he stretched out his arms, and 
passed away. 

Years, too, passed away. 

Rose was growing up. She was a young girl — hand- 
some, sensible, sedate, leading a retired kind of life. You 
met her sometimes when they were thinning the vines, 
her petticoats tucked up, a load of vine leaves lightly 
balanced on her head. With one finger she steadied it ; 
the branches, with their indented leaves, fell round her, 
veiling her slight figure; she walked with that firm, 
modest, active step, which carries young working girls to 
their home. If you happened to stop her for a moment, 
her cheeks crimsoned, she looked at you innocently, then 



32 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 

returned a few timid words, neither bold nor awkward | 
then went on her way, and you asked yourself what wood- 
nymph had brushed you by with her robe. 

Her eighteenth birthday came ; the village band came 
too, one fine July twilight, after the harvest was over. 

The violins came, scraping; they were heard from a 
distance ; they came all through the village, through the 
wood ; the young men walking after them, then the girls. 

"I'll run away !" said Rose. 

" Simpleton ! " returned her mother, half through timid- 
ity, half for fear of any talk. 

The clarionet sounded gaily, the notes dropped off like 
pearls, capered with a shrill falsetto, which made the wooda 
laugh again. Rose was agitated ; she felt her feet dance 
under her. Her heart beat, her eyes shone, and yet she 
could have wished herself on the very top of the mountain 
— far away ! 

The band came nearer, the playful character of the tune 
was distinctly heard — an old-fashioned German waltz, an 
irresistible measure. Yet Rose was inclined to cry; it 
was as though the peace, the ignorance of her youth, were 
flapping their wings as they flew away. 

Soon you could distinguish laughter, you heard the 
rustling of leaves, you saw the procession come winding 
through the branches. 

"Mother, the beautiful angels!" What voice at that 
moment repeated those words to the heart of Rose ? Why 
are mournful images so often conjured up by a burst of 
laughter 1 Rose drew back. 

" Mother, tell them not." 

But her mother, a simple creature, was not given to 
take the initiative; and, besides, Rose was eighteen — ■ 
ought she not to go with the rest? if she kept apart, 



THE THREE ROSES. a& 

folks would say that she was proud. And here was the 
band, here were the young men and the girls deploying at 
the door. 

"Now then, Rose, we are come for you. The whole 
village, you see. You can't think of affronting us ! " 

And as Rose seemed to shrink, two or three of her 
young friends came forward from the rest. 

" Come, Rose ! " they said, taking her aside. " We are 
going, as you see ; don't vex the others ; if you knew how 
good-naturedly they have all come for you ! Gan there be 
any harm in amusing ourselves a little 1 " 

As they were talking, they led her on. The band fol- 
lowed at a little distance, then the young men, then, 
further off, the girls. Soon they found themselves under 
the oak-trees, on the fine mountain-sod. They began to 
dance. Was Rose happy? There were, indeed, a few 
moments of rapture. All made much of her ; every now 
and then she had fits of flattered vanity. And yet she 
was ill at ease. She recalled her little room, her evening 
hymn on the garden bench, while the moon rose slowly 
behind the oaks, her silent walks with her mother, the 
freshness of the fields on the border of the wood. I do 
not know whether she prayed or not. Sundays do not 
end well so. 

At intervals there were others of the same kind. R.ose 
found little pleasure in them. 

Young girls that Jesus has once visited may, indeed, 
wet their lips at the cup of idle pleasure; they cannot 
drain it. One who has enjoyed long communing with 
God, who has fed upon the strong meat of Scripture, who 
early in life has bravely fought with the enemy — that lion 
greedy after his prey — such a one is not long detained 
by false pleasures. She finds there too many snares, too 



34 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 

many disappointments await her ; she sighs too much for 
blessings lost. 

For the world — what I mean by the world, is not to be 
confounded with the gaiety that befits youth, with fresh 
laughter and innocent meetings, the radiance, the har- 
mony, the frank outbursts of healthily happy hearts. No ; 
it is frivolity, dissipation with its sad commonplace of 
paltry jealousies, spiteful comments, over-excited vanity. 
It is the heart departing from God, saying to the Father, 
" Give me my portion, that I may enjoy it at my ease 
far from Thee." 

Eose, uneasy and dejected, was doing this. 

The Angel of Death touched her. 

It was a tedious illness, with unexpected changes for the 
better, then sudden relapses; yet Eose had again found 
happiness. Long weak, then confined to bed ; peace shone 
upon her brow. She went slowly down youth's flowery 
slopes ; she went the way of all the earth, but heaven had 
opened to her. A little sad at leaving her father and her 
mother, she had a fund of secret joy in her heart. But 
this had not been won without some struggles — some efforts 
to clutch again at life. There were days when earth seemed 
beautiful, Death cold, — when that unknown thing, the pas- 
sage between the two, frightened her. These days came 
to an end, others rose radiant, when heaven was so near, 
the hand of Jesus so strong, that the young girl seemed to 
walk on lightly, modestly, and firmly, as when in former 
evenings she followed the homeward path, her head crowned 
with vine branches, and bathed in the glow of sunset. 

One night, the last, she asked — she, who would suffer 
anything rather than wake her father and mother — asked 
them both to sit up with her. 

" See, father ; see, mother, I am going away. God has 



THE THREE ROSES. 35 

been very good to me. Ever since that Sunday I was un- 
happy in myself. If I had got well, perhaps I should have 
gone back with the rest. Where I am going God will 
keep me. It is very beautiful there. Do not cry. You 
will come there, father ; you will come there, mother." 

That was all. Rose had never been much of a talker. 
She was " close," as our villagers call it. 

When, the night nearly spent, two struck on the old 
wooden clock ; when the first streak of morning, rather a 
pallor than a light, glided in the east between the Alps and 
the sky ; when came that shudder of the dawn which de- 
taches so many lives ; that dubious hour, when watchers by 
the sick feel there eyes grow heavy ; that mysterious hour 
when the dying cease to struggle, and the unseen hand cuts 
the thread, — Eose, with one bound, leapt from her bed. 

" Father, your arm ! " she cried. Then she walked up 
and down, trembling, supported by her father, who had 
waked with a start out of his sorrowful sleep. Rose stood 
still before the window which looked to the east ; the 
earliest blackbirds were beginning to sing in the wood; 
she saw the reddening horizon ; wonder was painted on 
her face, something of timidity, too ; but the prevailing 
expression was happiness. 

"Is it that father?" 

Her father clasped her tightly, then carried back the 
body to the bed. 

Two evenings later, the white dresses were again seen 
winding through the wood paths, under the oaks. 

In the farmhouse, on the bed, reposed the most beauti- 
ful corpse it was possible to see. 

The young girls entered silently, crowding in at the end 
of the little room, near the door looking on with wide- 
opened eyes ; the youths stood without. 



36 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 

Eose had on her Sunday dress ; her first communion 
veil was thrown over her head, leaving her face bare ; the 
features were marble, the eyes half open, the expression 
grave, almost austere ; only the hand of Jesus had impressed 
on them the peace of heaven. Her hands were crossed. 
Above them, on her breast, God's book, which had con- 
soled her ; at her feet, the white crown which her young 
companions had brought. 

The mother made no ado, nor the father either. Not but 
what their anguish was great, but it was God's doing. 
God ripens and destroys the crops ; God gives our bread 
and takes it away. He knows why ; He is our Fathei : 
what have we to say ? 

They placed Eose in the coffin ; they put the garland on 
it; the youths carried the bier; the young girls followed; 
this time without violins, without clarionets, they took the 
road to the wood. 

Three Sundays after, on the turf, not far from the church- 
yard, the young people were dancing. 

II. 

The first Eose faded, another came. A white rose ; one 
of those roses with a foreign perfume; a hot-house rose 
that our winters kill. 

Even as a child she was peculiar ; liable to bursts of im- 
moderate mirth and immoderate depression ; at both these 
alike, her father, a discreet, deliberate man, frowned. Her 
mother took her part in her father's presence, but secretly 
she scolded her too. 

Awkward at her work, unpractical in daily life, Eose 
would wander about dreamily ; sometimes she had fits of 
laughter ; sometimes she shut herself up unsocially in a 



TEE THREE ROSES. 37 

solitary corner, with lips compressed and a gloomy ex- 
pression. She grew up amidst reprimands ; but she pre- 
ferred her mother's lectures to the tacit discontent of her 
father, a worthy but austere man, who truly loved her. 

Her parents were tolerably well off, but still they had to 
work. As for working in the fields, this Rose plainly could 
not do that; tall, slender, pale as she was, with preter- 
naturally large deep eyes, a transparent aquiline nose, the 
nose of a princess, and fair hair which surrounded her with 
a golden halo. They determined to make a lady of her ; 
she was one already. 

At school she was no better off than at home. She had 
to learn ; she went on dreaming. 

At last — 

"My girl," said her father, "we have had enough of 
masters ; your portion has been spent on your education ; 
you have lots of learning, gain your bread, my child ; you 
could not, or you would not, do so in the field ; take to 
teaching in your turn." 

Rose left home. Yery hard the life of a stranger in a 
strange house ! There are mother's kisses, mother's scold- 
ings for the children ; there is nothing of the kind for the 
governess. She is looked at coldly, and if she has faults 
one remarks them to one's-self, one does not tell her of 
them. 

Rose suffered less, though, than in her village life. She 
was in the midst of the great world of which she had so 
long dreamed. Still hers was an unsocial, reserved nature, 
with wants that earth does not satisfy. She expected too 
much from life, when disappointed she shrunk within her- 
self, and silently turned her proud head away. She did 
not succeed in practical matters, went from one family to 
another, earned little, spent much, being generous to the 



38 THE, NEAR HORIZONS. 

poor, and self-indulgent too. Sometimes she returned to 
her father's, discontented, taciturn, dressed like a fashion- 
able lady. Her father was cold in manner to her, her 
mother gave her good advice, and Rose went away again. 

She had an upright heart, a straightforward mind, the 
purity of crystal, only there was the secret frown of a con- 
stant depression on her brow ; telling of a missed vocation, 
of a wasted life. One spring she returned ill, but, as her 
cheeks were very rosy, and her eyes flashed bright, her 
father did not take much notice of it. Besides, Hose got 
soon tired of the village. The forest had nothing to say 
to her — she had not, as a little child, gathered strawberries 
in July along its fragrant borders. The meadows were 
gloomy ; she had never with her sisters driven thither in 
October the red cow, the black, the brindled. The Jura ! 
oh, that dark Jura ! it was like her discontented father, it 
made her shiver. 

Eose, though an invalid, took another flight ; she went 
to a hot climate, which speedily kills the delicate. 

When she returned, December had cast its winding-sheet 
over the earth. She was taken out of the carriage half 
dead. This time her father felt how ill she was, and how 
much he loved her. They took her into the best room, 
her mother gave her her own large, green-curtained bed. 
Eose was colourless, worn out by a hollow cough, but 
sometimes fever flushed her face ; it bloomed as the Alps 
do at sunset, only to look like them the paler afterwards ; 
her large eyes and her abundant hair were all that re- 
mained to her. 

I do not know what was going on in her soul, but I be- 
lieve that there was a great conflict there. She remained 
stiff, haughty, reserved. She was quite aware that she 
must die, but death dissatisfied her as life had dissatisfied ; 



THE THREE ROSES. 39 

God was accomplishing His own work in her quite alone ; 
later it became evident He was leading her apart along 
those rough paths where He leaves us in full sight of our 
own selves, a prey to our own will, our own desires, till 
broken down we fall on our knees, arms outstretched, call- 
ing loudly on Him who saves. • 

As for visits, Eose cared little for them; besides, her 
young acquaintance, being afraid of her, kept back. Her 
father, who had been moved just at first, relapsed into 
silence ; dying, his daughter suited him no better than she 
had done when well. There was no expansion; there 
were no caresses. Kose seemed frozen ; a kiss would have 
dissolved the ice, but she did not offer one, and no one 
else dared to do so. She laid the blame of her unhappy 
existence on all around her ; on her father, the village, on 
God, who had made her as she was. As to whether she 
regretted life or feared to die, no one could say; she 
listened to the Bible, to prayer, to everything with closed 
lips, her large eyes flashing out of their sunken orbits. 
Only her mother, watching narrowly, sometimes saw great 
tears suddenly gather there and overflow ; then she would 
clasp her in her arms. Eose only turned her head away, 
buried her face in the pillows, and answered nothing. Her 
father murmured : " My daughter, my daughter !" A 
thrill would pass through her weak frame, a transient 
light ; then Eose, sad, with brow paler than ever, but lips 
still closed, would resume her proud look and dream on in 
silence. 

No one had dared question her as to her faith. " She 
believes," her mother would say ; a mother's eye can see 
to the bottom of the heart. 

There was an unnatural stillness in the air. In that 
quiet room, entered and left so noiselessly, where meals 



40 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 

were taken at regular hours, where in the evenings the 
father sat reading to himself by the lamp-light, while the 
mother sewed, there brooded a deeper sadness, a more in- 
tense woe than bursts of weeping ever expressed. 

The darkest despairs are the most silent; and it was 
one of these which the heart of Rose concealed ; no dis- 
appointed love, no foolish hopes deceived. No; but let 
her thoughts turn where they would, from her first days to 
her last, she could not find one happy moment, not one ! 
And now where was she going 1 What would be her fate 
in presence of that God from whom she had asked nothing, 
had received nothing 1 In her hours of pride, indeed, she 
tried to contend with Him, but her daring only left her 
more desolate,— the darkness thickened, she was appalled 
at herself. 

One evening it was getting dark, the wind was driving 
the snow-showers along the deserted streets ; you heard 
nothing except the wooden shoes of some belated frequenter 
of the public-house. It was cold, gloomy ; the lamp was 
not yet lighted ; the father was musing, his back against 
the stove ; the mother, with her elbow resting on the 
window, watched the falling flakes, one side of her face 
whitened by their reflection. Rose was motionless in the 
large bed, breathing unevenly ; she seemed dozing. 

All at once, " My father, my mother ! " Could that, in- 
deed be Rose's voice ? had it such touching inflexions 1 

" Come, come, dear father, and you, mother, too 1 " 

Her father staggered; he felt as though something 
heavenly had lighted up the room, his limbs shook as he 
approached the bed ; the mother was kneeling there already. 
Half raising herself, Rose was looking at them ; oh, never 
in her best days had she looked at them so ; her trembling 
hand sought theirs ! 



THE THREE ROSES. 41 

" Pray, pray, my father ! Father, forgive me. I love 
you ! Oh, what good it does me to tell you so ! I could 

not before I have been a bad daughter, my father, 

proud, exacting ; I have not made you happy. .... Kiss 
me, mother; my father, my father !" and she clasped hiin 
in her arms. 

Her father and mother wept; her father most; there 
was a something of remorse, a more intense tenderness 
wringing his heart. 

" Poor child ! " sobbed the mother ; " must thou, then, 
indeed go 1 " 

" Say blessed child, say redeemed ! my mother, this 
is the first happiness I have ever known ! Jesus has found 
me ! Mother, it is sweet to die ! " 

What kisses, what forgivenesses were exchanged ! what 
fervour of heart kindled between these three poor souls 
who had believed they did not much love each other! 
Their daughter, so beautiful, so gentle, so dutiful; their 
daughter, as they had dreamed her, was actually there, 
their arms were round her, their eyes fed upon her face, — 
and she was about to die. 

But as for her, an ineffable rapture filled her heart. 
Heaven awaited her ; earth, before relinquishing, lavished 
on her all its treasures. In an instant, like one who gleans 
in haste, her hand snatched all the richest sheaves. A 
moment is as a thousand years to one about to enter on 
eternal day. She had reaped all ; she regretted nothing. 
Of the love of her father and mother, nothing henceforth 
could ever deprive her ; the love of her God shone round 
about her. In this glory she departed. 

The Lord has sudden unfoldings, such as these, for souls 
long closed. For beaten-down stalks He has looks which 
ripen into a golden harvest; He has warm rains for 



42 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 

parched-np ground; He has royal compassions, at which 
the hosts of angels break into hallelujahs of praise that 
ring from heaven to heaven. 

in. 

They had all been working hard : in the meadows get- 
ting the hay in ; in the vineyard, cutting the leaves ; in 
the fields, tying up the sheaves. July was drawing to a 
close. 

" I don't know," said the mother to me, " what ails my 
Rose. She has fretted too much for the father ; she has 
over-tired herself. It will be no harm though, I am sure." 
But evidently her heart was heavy. 

On the morrow, the doctor paid a visit to the little room. 
One reached it by a wooden staircase outside the house ; 
the window got all the sun, and looked on a small garden. 
A young girl sat there sewing away as fast as she could, — 
a slender form, with a fair, innocent face. Her mother 
was standing a little behind her. 

When the doctor entered, the young girl looked at him 
in amazement, rose, blushed deeply, then suddenly dropped 
down again on her chair, in all the bashfulness of sixteen. 

She had never left her mother; had never been to 
dances ; never run about the roads in the evenings, hand 
in hand with other girls, singing rounds as long as the 
moonlight lasted ; not that she was unsociable, or proud, 
but she knew better things than these ; and then she loved 
her mother, she mourned her father. To sew in her little 
room, to weed the garden, cut the vines, make hay, beat 
hemp in autumn, go to church on Sundays, sing hymns, 
return to sit on the benches of the school, where, as a child, 
she had been taught to love God, — these were her delights. 



THE THREE ROSES. 43 

These delights were so true and holy, that never face 
beamed with more serene brightness than did hers. 

But this visit of the doctor wearied her. She sick, 
indeed ! Certainly she felt tired, she did not eat ; but was 
that any reason for bringing that fine gentleman here 1 

I have always thought that the scene, put, just as it was, 
upon canvas, would have produced one of those touching 
pictures for which amateurs pay their weight in gold. 
The doctor, a man in the prime of life, with lip defined 
by a delicate moustache, bright brow, keen eye, firm and 
smiling mouth, was examining the young girl. Eose was 
seated in the full sunlight, she cast her long-lashed eyelids 
down ; sometimes, though, she raised them, and then her 
limpid glance was fixed on the doctor without any timidity ; 
her mouth was almost severely grave, only when some sally 
of his made her mother laugh, a smile, gayer than a sun- 
beam, passed over her lips, then a deep flush rose to her 
cheeks ; then again she sat stiff and motionless, as though 
she were about to have her portrait taken. 

The visit over, the doctor left. The mother, who was 
uneasy, followed him into the kitchen. 

" She may recover," said the doctor. 

" She is very ill, then ? " 

" She may recover." 

The prescription written out, he left, walked on some 
way, then, turning to me, he said, " But she will die." 

I often saw her after that, that rustic Rose, — that sweet- 
brier of the woods, that never opened out fully save to God 
and to her mother. 

Her soul had the transparency of a crystal ; she had its 
sharp angles too, something which might have been a little 
hard, but that her native sweetness, and the humility of 
the Christian softened it down. Truth came nakedly from 



U THE NEAR HORIZONS. 

her lips. She told you what she liked, and what she did 
not like, without any circumlocution. She only knew the 
yea, yea, nay, nay, of the gospel, and with that she had so 
much graceful ingenuousness, cordial affection. Hers was 
one of those individualities mightily developed by the 
Bible ; uniting all the simplicity of the village, the inex- 
perience of her age, and of her retired way of life, with 
extremely delicate perceptions, keen discernment, and great 
knowledge of her own heart. She shewed sometimes the 
blank amazement of a bird that has just left the nest ; she 
cast a stupefied glance upon what of the world came within 
her notice ; at other times she would utter some deep say. 
ing that a master mind might have gladly claimed. 

Eose was no maker of speeches, but when one brought 
her flowers or fruit — for the time soon came when she could 
not gather any for herself — her face lit up, her pretty teeth 
sparkled ; she would say, with a blush, " It is too much," 
then look at her mother, and one felt that for such a look 
one would willingly despoil orchard and garden. 

There are hours of fugitive joy, there is an efflorescence 
of happiness on pale faces, which infuses heavenly felicity 
into one's heart ; how one blesses God when one has been 
the means of calling these forth ! what deep disgrace to do 
this so seldom ! and yet how slight a thing may have the 
desired effect. 

Eose suffered tortures ; death had to wrestle with all the 
strength of sixteen. She did all she could to conceal them, 
but it was hardly possible; it was as though she were 
broken on the wheel. At such times she would clasp both 
her arms round her mother's neck, and hide her face in her 
breast; then she would raise herself, and look into her 
eyes with her clear, confiding glance. Her mother turned 
away, and wept. 



THE THREE ROSES. 45 

Never were there greater sufferings in any poor body, 
never greater peace -in any soul. It was one of those 
easily detached lives that the Lord just touches and which 
fall off like a vestment. This mother was a widow, this 
daughter was in all the brilliancy of her first youth, they 
loved each other, and yet they tranquilly advanced — the 
one torn to pieces, but submissive ; the other a little sad, 
but composed — towards that turn in the road where they 
had to bid each other farewell. It was done simply, with- 
out much speaking, without any transports. The daughter 
saw plainly that she was going to die, the mother had 
known it long. Rose had asked no questions, her mother 
had kept nothing back ; they walked on side by side, day 
after day ; the last day would come when God pleased. 

These hidden existences are nearer to heaven than ours. 
These lives, which unfold so quietly, are better prepared 
for a sudden close. They have not so much to leave, they 
are more accustomed to receive everything, good and bad, 
directly from the hand of God, the soul's relations with 
Him are more simple, the habit of obedience more strongly 
formed. 

There was nothing triumphant about the departure of 
Rose. Some deaths are glorious; hers advanced quiet, 
modest, a little austere like herself, at times illuminated 
with rays from above. 

Neither mother nor daughter troubled themselves about 
an earthly future. Her mother would say — 

" Afterwards, why, I shall be dull enough, but I shall 
not be alone, nor long in this world. 5 ' 

Then Rose would look at her. "He will not forsake 
you, mother." 

She had always pretty children about her — the children 
of a brother and sister settled in the village. Little boys 



46 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 

■with merry faces, very noisy fellows, but quiet there ; a 
cradle, and under green cloth curtains a fresh little face, 
smiles without a cause, and mottled hands, beating the 
coverlet. Then the brow of Eose would flush with vivid 
light, her eyes swim in ecstasy, her heart bound high ; you 
would have taken her for one of Perugino's Madonnas; she 
had the same pure outline, the same repressed ecstasy, the 
same fulness of holy love. 

Flowers, too, charmed her, and she always had them in 
profusion ; wild flowers, gathered by her former compan- 
ions, and stuffed into great burly jars ; in April the peri- 
winkle, in May the lily of the valley, in June the honey- 
suckle, in July the sage, the pink, the red poppy, with the 
corn-flower, the sweetbrier, the mignonette, mixed with a 
few green ears of corn. Rose would take them one by 
one, and look at them long. " They are beautiful— they 
are sweet ! . . . . Last year I used to gather them myself, 
great aprons full of them." Then she grew silent; then 
suddenly raising her eyes, and looking at her mother, " You 
must not cry, mother, I 'm not fretting over myself." 

And yet Eose had her heart-sinkings, had hours when 
her heart turned back towards life. There would come 
across her images of health, of pleasure, even of those noisy 
pleasures which she had refused. But this did not last. 
" I am very wicked," she would say ; she clasped her hands : 
her calm returned. 

One day, quite confused, she said, " Could you believe it, 
mother ? lam thinking of my white frock, my first com- 
munion frock ! I have only worn it once, mother. . . . You 
will put it on me, will you not V 

The mother, with wrung heart and closed lips, stood at 
the foot of the bed, ardently looking at her child. 

" Will they give me the crown % the beautiful crown, with 



THE THREE ROSES. 47 

roses, orange flowers, and hawthorn?" . . . The tears ran 
silently down the mother's face. " You will keep it, mother 1 " 

This was the last sigh after earthly things ; afterwards 
came on the agony, afterwards the Lord drew near ; the 
young girl felt her heart beat with holy impatience to de- 
part; happiness overflowed her; always sincere, she did 
not exaggerate the strength of her faith ; but she was in 
haste — her eyes shone. 

The hour struck — it was in the night ; with a voice still 
firm, looking at her young friends gathered round her bed, 
sad and aghast : " Give your hearts to Jesus/' she said ; 
then let her head fall on her mother's breast. That was all. 

When the morning came, the village awoke. It was 
baking day; at dawn the oven-tenders came to call the 
women, by tapping against the window panes ; the oxen 
went heavily along to the fountains, the mowers betook 
themselves to the meadows, the children to school ; the 
larks singing deliriously rose into the light of the beautiful 
sun. 

On earth there was nothing changed, only a mother that 
wept ; nor was anything changed in the little room, only 
a beautiful white crown, framed and glazed, was suspended 
on the wooden partition close against the bed. 




THE TILERY. 

jT is an outlandish house, situated far from any 
village ; a man and his wife live there, young 
people, quite alone, but for three children, boys. 
This man and his wife make tiles. Their dwelling nes- 
tles at the bottom of a little valley by the side of a brook. 
The tenants of the tilery — for it does not belong to them — 
have for their solace, on their right, a view of the wood 
which slopes down to the stream, very thick on the crest 
of the hill, with oaks that emerge from the rest of the 
verdure ; less dense, towards the low ground, single trees 
standing out, and plenty of brambles between them. To 
the left, our good people, from their deep hollow, may con- 
template at their ease ground which rises in great undula- 
tions like a natural park; hollowed here, swelling there, 
devoid of trees, up to an old castellated dwelling which 
stands on the highest of these rounded slopes, and looks 
down at them through its few windows. Beyond, the Jura 
cuts against the sky, with its lofty dome, black at the base, 
still clearly denned, but becoming almost ethereal at its 
summit. A little more to the north, and slightly receding, 
as if the better to throw out the sombre hues of the moun- 
tain, a wide amphitheatre of rocks opens out in broad, bold 
masses, with picturesque yellow clefts, and forms an abrupt 
barrier, crowned through its whole length by an edge of 
firs, standing out like delicate etchings against the sky. 
You think such a dwelling as this melancholy, but it is 



THE TILERY. 49 

not so ; retired, out of the way it certainly is, but so much 
sunshine smiles there, so many light-winged dragon-flies 
dart to and fro under the leaves that shade the brook ; so 
many blue and yellow butterflies sport in the meadows ; so 
many birds sing in the woods; you inhale such fresh 
breezes there, you are so firmly planted in the very heart 
of nature as God made it, that positively I never go there 
without feeling that I would willingly remain. 

You may reach the tiler's house either by the valley or 
by the wood. This morning I take the valley, scarcely 
knowing why. 

Have you any time to lose ? I have for my part. We 
shall see the valley by and by, since that is the way we are 
to go, but we may take our time, there is no hurry. Come 
first with me up this steep path, and let us walk a little 
in the wood. 

This break-neck path would be the delight of a painter, 
with its red surface, ravaged by the rains, falling rather 
than descending from the plains above, with a bristling 
hedge on one side, on the other a green field. When a 
shepherd with his flock rears himself up there at the top 
in seeming gigantic proportions, walking with crook on 
shoulder, while the air is filled with plaintive bleatings ; 
or again when the sheep, spread out like a white avalanche, 
with black spots, the picture is complete; one of those 
exquisite scenes, not taking much in, indeed, not aiming 
at subhmity, but presenting at a given moment a few of 
those simple effects, these humble, nay, trivial incidents, 
over which colour, accuracy, and purity of style throw an 
ineffable charm. 

After the path comes the plain, arid enough, half com- 
mon, half poor pasture. The soil is clayey, the sun beats 
down on it fiercely; there are no bees flying about, no 

D 



50 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 

grasshoppers jumping there, no juniper bushes to shelter 
the thrush; it is one of those torrid zones which one 
traverses, looking out for some green to rest one's eyes on. 
The valley which opens out below, the one we are going 
to take by and by, opportunely offers the silken show of 
its culture to our gaze : the pink spikes of the sainfoin, the 
golden rape, the purple clover, the waving barley, and 
meanwhile a keen air, a north wind that has been sifted 
through the forest, passes through the burning atmosphere, 
and fans our faces. 

Here first we come upon the pines ; they grow in clus- 
ters, little grassy pathways winding round their stems. 
They have sown themselves at various heights, and accord- 
ing as they spring from the .level where we stand, or rear 
themselves from the slope which sinks down to the valley, 
they reveal from root to crown a deep intensity of green 
which absorbs the sunlight, or they only shew their pointed 
summit sharply outlined on the landscape. 

On the other side of the valley, now hidden, now dis- 
closed, you see the cottages of the nearest village ranging 
themselves along the top of the hill, and with the slender 
spire standing out against the dark mass of the Jura ; — you 
might almost think they leant up against it, you would say 
they were a white carving on a black ground, — but for the 
transparency of the atmosphere, but for a certain aerial 
perspective, certain limpid vapours, rather air rendered 
visible than mist, which surround them with light, and 
convey the impression of a strip of unseen level ground 
between the village and the mountain. 

There are hours, evening hours, when the sun, concealed 
behind the ridge of the Jura, darts such a glory of rays 
between its rounded shoulder and the rock battlements ; 
when such streams of light pass through that spacious open- 



THE TILERY. 51 

ing, when the serrated outlines of the amphitheatre are so 
royally bright ; when that side of the mountain which hides 
the sun melts into such solemn tones, that the soul remains 
wellnigh overpowered in presence of one of the grandest 
spectacles of nature. 

But now the sun is in the east ; it is rising higher and 
higher, each tree casting a long far-spreading shadow on 
the earth. 

The pines are in flower. Do you know the flower of 
the pine 1 I fancy that it was from it that the old gods of 
Olympus used to extract the odorous resin with which they 
perfumed their nectar. The pines, far as the eye can reach, 
lift up their little wax candelabras — virgin granulated wax. 
Each branch bears its own ; it seems as though the forest 
were preparing some marvellous illumination for the fairies, 
and when a puff of wind comes, and the boughs swing 
slowly, the golden dust of the pollen floats around in soft 
clouds, and sinks gently down upon the moss. 

But we are still walking on this debatable ground, which 
has suddenly widened out ; on the clayey soil where grow 
a few sparse cereals bending to the breeze. 

The forest, the real forest, lies before us. Do you wish 
for songs 1 let us go under the old oaks. Do you prefer 
silence, with a vague stir in the air ? let us keep below the 
pines. 

First of all then, under the oaks. There, where the 
grass grows, and brambles interlace ; where the sweet-brier 
stops up the way, and creeping plants abound ; there along 
that shining track where footsteps have trodden down the 
vegetation. 

There it is that you are fairly lost ; there that exhale all 
round nameless perfumes, fresh emanations of the earth, of 
the old trunks, of the young foliage. The very light is 



52 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 

green, the shade all interpenetrated with sun. Not a 
breeze, except every now and then indeed a mere puff, you 
know not whence, which just lifts the branches, wafts here 
and there still sweeter scents, then dies away, and leaves 
you half intoxicated with perfume. 

What charming mysteries there are in these nooks ! 
Millions of insects, all dowered with intelligence, dressed 
for a festival, displaying, between the blades of grass, the 
purple, the ebony, the ultramarine of their elytra, their 
armour of malachite and gold, delicate antennae, and little 
feathered crests. There are artizans among them, who 
lead a hard life, hewing, sawing, storing night and day. 
There are idlers who go to and fro, climb to the top of a 
stalk, look upon the world below, move right and left 
without any particular purpose ; take things as they find 
them. There are thinkers, too, motionless for hours be- 
neath a sunbeam. There are busybodies who fly in haste, 
make sudden starts, long journeys, and prompt returns 
without very well knowing why. There are musicians 
who, for hours together, go on repeating their monotonous 
song. There are swarms of ephemera waving hither and 
thither in some brilliant spot, neither too high nor too low, 
seeking no sustenance, in a very ecstasy of life, light, and 
harmonious motion. 

It is good to be here. The path glides under the bushes ; 
flowering branches strike against your face. As you advance, 
a low cry, a rapid flight, reveal to you nests that your 
hand sets gently rocking as you divide the branches before 
you. From every nook burst the brilliant notes of the 
maestri of the wood. Eedbreasts, blackbirds, chaffinches, 
wrens — all except the nightingale, who finds the cite too 
wild ; except the lark, who prefers the open sky of the 
fields ; except the quail, who hides her brood in the hay ; 



THE TILERY. 53 

— all at the top of their voice ; all with throats proudly- 
distended, sing, trill, call ! It is a glorious fulness of har- 
mony, which affects you like the vibrations of the sunlight. 

Marvellously fresh is the song of the blackbird. In 
spring infinitely varied in its tones, it gets shorter as the 
summer advances, until, by the time his nestlings are 
hatched, he loses his notes one after the other, and remains 
cut short, rather quizzical, rather embarrassed, and a good 
deal amazed that he can go no further. And while the 
blackbird whistles at random on the top of a great oak-tree, 
the redbreast, perched below on some thick bush, throws 
off a very rain of diamonds and pearls, scatters in the air 
his crystalline notes all full of light and fancy. Lower 
yet, beneath the brilliant concertos and bravura songs, 
there are murmurs more intimate and charming still ; the 
whispered talk of an enamoured pair ; the chirping of the 
mother to her young brood. The rest is a mere affair of 
display ; here there is soul ; here there are endless narra- 
tions, little cries of joy, sage counsels, innocent surprises ; 
sometimes, but rarely, bursts of anger; lovers who lose 
themselves in ineffable repetitions ; children who speak all 
at once, and little melodious beatified sighs, as if a bird's 
heart was not large enough to hold so much happiness. 

And now we reach the clearing — a wide space, twilight; 
no more brushwood, only luxuriant grass ; here and there 
an old oak, with rugged trunk and strong knotted branches. 
A wide dome circles above ; all round stands the green wall 
of the wood ; at intervals a stray sunbeam ; within it a fly 
passing to and fro ; absolute stillness and calm. We have 
left the wood-songs in the coppice; the cuckoo's plaint 
alone is to be heard afar, from one hiding-place to another ; 
here it comes to us muffled, — does not trouble the silence. 

A dead tree is lying in the shade ; it is cool here, let us 



5i THE NEAR HORIZONS. 

seat ourselves. Fit retreat for a philosopher ; fit occasion 
for communing with one's-self. Commend me to these 
green studios, these sylvan fortresses, this deep isolation. 
What enterprises the soul enters on here ! what deeds are 
planned, what mighty things are done ! how the world gets 
shaken, overturned, made and remade at one's will ! If 
you have a fancy to be king, emperor, great Mogul, or 
only the first poet of the age, — to be any kind of genius, 
whether in music, painting, rhyme, or reason, — go and seat 
yourself a while on the prostrate trunk in the forest glade. 
You will see all the glories of the world pass before you ; 
you will engage in terrible battles; you will come in for some 
rude blows ; nothing is to be conquered without trouble ; 
but I know not how it comes to pass, you will always be 
the hero, always the victor. As for me, inveterate idler 
that I am, I think of nothing. There are people who 
dream, and know what about ; some idea or other is always 
running in their head ; some image moving before and beck- 
oning them on ; for me, nothing of the kind. I lie at full 
length under the branches, I inhale the aroma, I look at 
the lacework of trees against the sky ; I admire the mys- 
terious harmony of green with blue; I rise as high as I 
can into the infinite azure depths ; I feel that existence is 
sweet; my soul floats suspended in ether; I am neither 
asleep nor awake, only it seems to me that I have some 
comprehension of the immensity of God. 

Oh, liberty, liberty ! to live the healthy life of the woods; 
to encamp in the forests like those gipsies who have left 
that red rag hanging on that shoot of sweet-brier ; to see 
the sun rise between the leaves ; to see the moon march 
on through the oak-trees ; to come in for the dew of morn- 
ing ; to wander without hindrances ; to be satisfied with 
little ! There is so much hard work in our stone houses, 



THE TILERY. 55 

so heavy a load of care, so many difficulties in moving a 
finger, so much bondage to custom, such crooked artificial 
natures, so little aptness for true enjoyment ; and here, two 
steps off, is absolute independence, self-possession, free mo- 
tion, existence such as God created it in Eden ! 

Nay, we are no longer in Eden : we are in a land of 
pilgrimage ; a land of toil, with great clods to break, hol- 
lows to fill up, fallow ground to till ; by and by will come 
the rest of evening. No, we are no longer in Eden ; these 
traces of the axe in the forest glade tell it me too plainly. 

My tall, beautiful oaks ! Have not they been cut over, 
laid low on the ground, with all their foliage, in the glory 
of their summer ! Have they not had glaring spaces, awk- 
ward gaps made in them ; have not their secret retreats 
been profaned, the mysterious hiding-places of the squirrel 
laid bare ! When I see these mutilated trunks, this red- 
dened wood from which the sap is flowing; when I see 
the glade gain upon the wood, the pasture on the glade, 
the arable land on the pasture, I say to myself, that the 
time is coming, is at hand, when, in our country, you will 
seek for the forest in vain. 

Despoiled of their woods, of their fruit-trees even — for 
everything is turned into money — will our valleys and 
hills, bare as my hand, lit up by one same sun, washed by 
one same rain, swept by one same wind, be more beautiful, 
be worth more ? Let wise heads determine ; but for my 
part, I have great confidence in the wisdom of God. No 
rills without woods, no birds without branches, no music 
without birds. I do not speak of our harvest devoured by 
insects. But is it nothing to have beauty, grace, melody 
everywhere 1 What sort of a race will remain to you when 
you have weaned it from poetry 1 ? People will go on 
working, eating, drinking, saving money, it is true ; but 



56 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 

no more noon-day rest beneath the walnut-tree, no more 
hawthorn wreaths snatched in passing, no more walks in 
the wood on Sunday evenings, no more strawberries gathered 
at the foot of the mountain in those green nooks, shut in 
by pines ; the moon in rising will shine no more through 
the tall pear-trees, no more lily of the valley will be 
gathered in great handfuls to perfume the little cottage- 
room all the week through. 

Does man live by bread alone 1 Jesus has said that he 
does not, that he has need of the Word of Glod as well. 
With the exception of the one Book, written by His 
supreme hand, I know few of such sovereign power; I 
know few words as penetrating, few that so effectively 
touch the heart, as do the simple influences of a nature 
untouched by our hand. 

As for me, these words contain a large part of my life. 
As a child I followed the steps, now, alas ! effaced, of a 
grandfather, a mother, and many others. These dusky 
avenues have heard many a cry of joy ; many a fine story, 
lasting as long as we were in the forest, has unfolded itself 
along these winding paths. What fun it was when all the 
party chanced boldly to plunge into a swamp ! What de- 
light when, the great drops of rain falling one by one, we 
took refuge under the shelter of the oaks ; the earth exhal- 
ing its healthy perfume ; every opening in the leaves 
becoming a gutter, then the branches bending, then the 
shower turning into a cataract ; we were wet through, we 
were, oh, how happy ! 

The forest is still the same. In the spring the bee- 
orchis displays her velvet robe at the foot of the great 
pines; in the summer, the pink, with slashed petals of 
gray hue, balances itself at the end of a slender stalk — 
singular flower whence exhales a perfume that makes the 



THE TILERY. 57 

very heart faint. The shade is the same, the freshness 
great as ever, — that rarefied freshness through which floats 
a passing aroma that soon dies away again, like those wan- 
dering notes that rise in wide expanses of country, then 
suddenly lose themselves without one's knowing whence 
they rose or where they died away. 

Nothing has changed ; only I have been going on. Be 
it so ; this immutable aspect of nature, the perennial char- 
acter of seasons, flowers, birds' nests, I like it ; it does me 
good. But some are soured by it, find in it almost an 
insult to our sorrows. It is no more so than the equable 
azure of the sky, the star-lamps kindled every night. It 
is the eternity of God's goodness, the eternity of youth ; 
the eternal ideal affixed by the Lord's hand on creation's 
brow. And then are there not children, even while we are 
young ; young lives while ours are declining ; strong men 
rising round when we have to die 1 Is it not well that 
they should inhale the same flowers, rejoice in the same 
sunshine, quench their thirst at the same fountains 1 

This is why these blows of the axe upon the oaks resound 
so in my heart. 

Let us return by the path under the pines. 

Every soil makes its own tree, every tree makes its own 
fauna and flora, and, by a wonderful reaction, its own soil 
too. Here the ground is swept clean; brown, smooth, 
covered with dry, needle-like leaves ; it is all that a brier 
can do to grow in open spaces. The stems rise tall and 
slender, armed at their base with small sharp branches; 
higher up, with bristling tufts, proud]y indenting the sky. 
The air plays freely round ; no deep shade, only the light 
is softened as it strains through. Sometimes a single pink, 
lost in the grass, sends out a transient emanation on the 
breeze. The roots of the pines, clothed with bark like the 



58 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 

branches, intersect the path like irregular nights of steps. 
The walk, I know not why — is it the confirmation of the 
soil, or have the pines something to do with it? — has 
assumed a mountain character. The breeze is keener ; the 
spirits grow more elastic. Behind the colonnade of trees 
you see the country spread out in different levels; now 
hollowed into wide valleys, now rising into plateaus, as far 
as the Alps. At the bottom, through the fields, the high 
road divides the district by a line that shines in the sun. 
It runs straight, then branches into rays, with thin threads, 
that lose themselves at the horizon. Far away, the Alps 
rear their frozen ramparts : the thick wood hides the Jura. 
You only hear the cry of the labourers, who, the moment 
the hay is got in, break up the ground to prepare it for 
autumn, their loud voices spreading over the plain ; grating, 
mournful, like the voices of men who lead a hard life. 
They reach the pines, and break against them into a soft- 
ened tremulous sound. Sometimes the bells of some small 
vehicle trotting along the road scatter little sparks of sound, 
that mingle with the trills of the cricket in the clover, — 
that is all. Above the forest you may see some night bird 
flying heavily along, escorted by all the winged hosts of 
the wood. Then what an outburst there is of hooting and 
screams of derision, till he is conducted into another can- 
ton ! At your feet a travelling snail or adventurous cricket 
crosses the path, on his way to visit his relations in the 
fields. 

It is not yet the season of grasshoppers. Later, they 
will leap in thousands wherever your foot treads, green as 
a July apple, or gray and earth-coloured, or brown with 
scarlet-lined wings ; with their lively expression, their goat- 
like profile, and their prominent eyes, they will chirp away 
in the newly-cut grass. 



THE TILERY. 59 

Nor is it the time of fungi either ; those grotesque crea- 
tions which dot the wood with their vivid colours as soon 
as October has deflowered the glades. They are a singular 
race, and full of mystery. There are good and bad among 
them. I am not speaking of their poisonous properties, 
but of their outward shape and bearing. Some are deli- 
cate, milk-white, planted in circles, as if to mark the spot 
where fairies danced last night. Others are solitary, 
blackish, livid, treacherous-looking; planning some crime 
apart. Those purple, lined with orange, display their 
magnificent attire in the midst of a crowd of gray knobs, 
that stand round at respectful distances ; pachas in their 
harems ! These, bright as silver, smooth as silk, a satin 
dome above, ivory gills below. There are some rainbow- 
coloured, some of pale gold. Whence do they come ; 
whither do they go ! When the mists of autumn hung 
heavy on the earth, what sun purpled them, painted them 
sulphur-coloured, gave them their mother-of-pearl irides- 
cence % Why does the cow who browses the latest plants, 
and munches up the frost-bitten leaves; why does the 
sheep wandering under the bare oak-trees, leave these un- 
touched % I do not know why. 

But the mid-day heat scorches the country ; it is getting 
late, let us go down to the valley, for it is there, indeed, 
that our way lies, as you already know. 

Here we are by the brook. We enter the intense shade 
cast by rocks, all clothed with wild cherry-trees, mountain 
ash, maples, and hazels. The flowering bramble hooks 
itself on to everything; the brook runs on beneath the 
willows between lichen-covered stones. Down there it is 
almost dark; a beautiful gloom surrounded by light. 
Sometimes the king-fisher skims the water with his wing ; 
follows its course like a flash of blue lightning, too quick 



60 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 

for the eye. An old pollard bends its stem across. Out 
of the middle of its crown shoots the young cherry-tree, 
sowed there last year by the hands of some child at play. 
The brook leaves the shade, crosses the road, widens in the 
sunshine. It is here that the young haymakers bathe their 
bare feet. Next it sets off running through the meadows, 
sometimes in sight, sometimes concealed beneath arcades of 
bushes. 

There is no road through the valley, merely a track. 
On both sides are steep rocks, to the left clothed with 
brushwood, to the right with old oak-trees, flinging down 
festoons of wild vine, and balmy clematis. Then the rocks 
disappear, and the valley throughout its length is enclosed 
by the wood on the east, by the green rising ground to tha 
west, with the Jura and the rocky amphitheatre closing in 
the horizon. 

I do not know any retreat richer in flowers than this. 

Not a breath of air. The sun darts fiercely down, but 
the grass keeps green, the murmur of the water, its fresh 
gurgle, its limpid whispers seem to spread moisture round. 
]STo seed is brought here by the hand of man ; the birds, 
the wind, when it chances to pass by, are the only 
sowers. 

There are successive flower-shows here, and each has 
its own one plant. Blue salvias ; columbines, with their 
lovely hanging bells, that tremble every time a butterfly 
touches them in his flight ; a profusion of yellow coronella, 
then small red starry pinks ; and near the brook, the white 
feathery fragrant tufts of the meadow-sweet, with some 
green insect slumbering in their midst. 

As soon as a cluster of alders bends over the water, the 
honey-suckle throws its night-scented tufts from stem to 
stem. Then beneath, you find secret bathing-places ; little 



THE TILERY. 61 

shady bays, where the current hardly stirs the leaf that 
hangs lowest. 

Here at noon come the village youths, here cries of 
joy are heard, here the water is thrown up in fountains, 
falls in sheets, and dripping feet soak the meadow-grass. 

But at this present hour there is perfect silence; the 
silence of mid-day in June. Only, beneath some wild pear- 
tree, you may see the mowers stretched at full length, their 
straw-hats over their faces, or their faces buried in the 



Onward. The fleece of the hemp is swelling, it is ex- 
quisitely sweet. The old bridge throws its arch from side 
to side ; one stone has detached itself, perhaps thirty years 
ago; a willow grows on it, it lies in the water, moss-covered, 
like an emerald in the sun. I fall into a dream, the stone 
changes to an island, the sprigs of moss are palm-trees ; I 
land — I am in the East ! . . . 

Onward still. The ground is wilder, has fewer flowers. 
Reeds rattle ; the valley narrows, the swampy soil shakes 
beneath one's feet. This portion of the forest, only half 
cleared, still amazed at the broad daylight, exposes its 
stumps to the sun. It is covered with tall, large-leaved 
plants. The brook glides over a clay bottom, grows wider, 
has no more sheltered creeks. A sudden turn, here is the 
tilery seated in its solitude. 

It consists of little more than a shed, beneath which dry 
the tiles, a bit of a house opposite, under the same roof, — 
a low window, a door with a porch — and in front a bare 
garden, where grow some cabbage-stalks and some rows of 
kidney beans. 

Not a creature about, the children have run away at our 
approach. No poultry ; the small farmers, to whom the 
neighbouring fields belong, would not suffer them. No cow; 



62 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 

there is no hay for one. In the stable there is a goat, for 
which the boys go at nightfall to gather young shoots in 
the wood ; there is an old horse, too, half blind, half lame, 
who gets harnessed to the old cart, and carries the tiles to 
the customers. 

"We will enter the kitchen; the floor is earthen; not 
much to be seen in it, just enough to prove most decided 
poverty. A few plates in the rack, a few iron spoons and 
prongless forks, a dinged saucepan, on the hearth nothing 
but a broken trivet. No flitches of bacon, no wreaths of 
sausages hung in the chimney ; only a string of onions, 
and on the table an earthen tureen, where smokes some 
thin soup or other, and three pieces of black bread neatly 
cut. Yet everything is clean : the rush broom has been all 
round; the bareness is orderly, is not pitiable. Where 
destitution has got the upper hand, things are not so well 
arranged. 

At the sound we make, the bed-room door opens gently, 
a man comes out — a puny figure, timid-looking, with a 
moist, kind eye, a rather slow, quiet manner, and a happy 
expression. 

"Well, James." 

"I beg your pardon, ma'am. "We sent for you. She 
has been dreadfully ill ; just now things are better." 

"And the child?" 

u Oh ! " and James gave a simple kind of laugh ; " the 
child ! It will be like the others." 

At that moment three chubby faces, — three curly heads, 
little rogues half undressed, furtively advance to the outside 
of the window, and look through at the tureen. 

"Those?" James nods his head. "Very well, James, 
eat your soup ; I have something to do here ; you will 
come in by and by." 



TEE TILERY. 63 

James is not in the habit of disputing, he stands still a 
moment, and beckons to the boys, who come in just as we 
pass into the next room. It is the bed-room, there is no 
other ; bare as the kitchen ; barer if possible ; only it is 
very clean, very bright, and it has a boarded floor. Just 
at this moment, however, the light is a little obscured. 
James has hung up some old aprons in the windows. The 
red-curtained bed leaus up against the wall ; a walnut-wood 
cupboard, the family wardrobe, stands opposite; by the 
two windows are two chairs ; no table ; and that is all. 

In the bed lie mother and child ; she, as robust as her 
husband is weakly, with an eye as bright as his is subdued. 
A strong nature, with a wild light in her glance, something 
about her unusual, outlandish, like her house. 

" This is how you behave, Jane 1 On the very point of 
death without letting people know ! " 

Jane lifted herself up with an abrupt gesture. 

" It 's like that always, but this time I thought the end 
was come." 

Her voice was firm, her accent decided ; it was only the 
trembling of her arm that betrayed her weakness. 

"Why not get help?" 

" Oh, if one got into the habit of it ! " 

" You have suffered a great deal 1 " Jane looked at me, 
the flash in her eye was her only answer. " And now % " 

"I shall get well." 

This woman will not die ; each lying-in is torture, she 
goes through it ; she measures herself with death, wrestles, 
shakes off his clasp, and eight days after you see her driv- 
ing the old horse, who draws the old cart with the tiles. 

James moulds the clay, and bakes these tiles. Jane 
takes them to the houses around ; he remains quietly at 
home, she scours the valley ; but she is never long away. 



64 TEE FEAR HORIZONS. 

Jane is no talker, she walks on in silence by the side of 
her cart, her eye always a little wild, then she returns to 
her nest. When there are no orders, weeks pass away 
without either of them being seen. 

" You did not forget God, Jane ? " 

" m." 

"Why should I repeat what passed in confidence between 
us 1 ? Jane's secrets, what she believes, what she hopes, 
what her soul holds within itself, belongs to her only. 
Besides, she says little. James came in ; his look, when 
it rested on his wife, had a tenderness about it which 
stirred my heart. She turned, and their eyes met. 

" He is a good man," said she, and I saw a tear gather 
under her eyelids. 

" One does as well as one can," said James. 

" You are lonely," I broke in, " so far from the village." 

Both looked at me with an expression of astonishment. 

" You are not dull 1 " Jane laughed, her white teeth 
lighting her face up. " If your pains were ever to get 
worse ? " 

" One has the doctor," replied the husband ; it only takes 
about two hours to go for him." 

" And two more to bring him back, which makes four. 
In that time Jane might sink." 

" God will see to that," said Jane. 

" And your children 1 " 

" Oh, no fear for them ! " 

" Does not the day seem long to you ? " 

" No," said they, both at once. Then James went on — 

" Look you, ma'am, we do very well. I have my tiles ; 
she has her horse, her garden, and her spinning-wheel, and 
then there are the children. When winter comes, one reads 
a bit in the evenings ; one takes a spell in the Bible, and 



THE TILERY. 65 

one goes to bed early. Then there is the wood ; in spring 
there is plenty of singing there. People are no good to 
us. They are such talkers in the villages, and so proud, 
too. We are but poor, and they would look down upon us 
belike. Though as for that, the year goes round, and we 
get on very well somehow." 

Jane said nothing, but in her black eye you saw a light 
that was kindled by something more than her husband's 
negative happiness. 

For him, fireside peace, silence, one day like another, 
with affection, sufficed. She loved too, somewhat indeed 
after the fashion of a wild animal, but she did love. She 
would not on any account have had a James of a different 
stamp, less gentle, less careful, less quiet. And yet, for 
her, this solitude included something over and above do- 
mestic happiness. Whether she distinctly understood this 
or not, I cannot say ; but she felt it. 

Here she breathed fresh free air, that wild poetry which 
passes through the forests on the wings of the morning 
wind; here she lived far away from the prose of frequented 
spots; the jokes, the grievances, the gossip of the village 
never jarred her. When she walked along by the old cart, 
and heard the grinding of its old wheels, there was an un- 
conscious music within her heart that cheered her on. The 
notes of birds singing in the woods, the sound of distant 
bells, the merry voices of her children echoing softly from 
afar • the sweet scent of the meadows ; the keen breath of 
dawn ; the warm breeze of evening ; the mountain, whe- 
ther in gloom or radiance ; the changeless blue of the sky, 
with its swift battalions of clouds ; — all these went to 
swell that music of which we speak. And at night when 
she pressed her little nestlings close ; when the dead 
branches flamed brightly on the hearth, lighting up the 



66 TEE NEAR HORIZONS. 

face of James as lie looked at her with that innocent ex- 
pression of his, Jane's heart glowed within her. Melted 
into tenderness, proud, and passionately happy, she would 
not have changed her lot with that of the Queen of Eng- 
land, seated crown on head on a throne of gold. 




THE HEGELIAN. 

jSTE night in the month of May, but not therefore 
a beautiful night — for it rained in torrents — I 
was travelling in a diligence. It was in the 
year 1849, and there were then no railroads in Switzer- 
land. The diligence, a great house on wheels, with its 
two coupes, an interior, a rotonde, cabriolet on the roof, 
seats here, seats there, rolled along, collecting everything 
and everybody, and, in its winding, river-like course, might 
be said, in geographical phrase, to drain the country be- 
tween Neufchatel and Bale, at which last place it arrived 
on the second night. 

It rained, I have said, in torrents. There was no place 
in either of the coupes. The cabriolet was out of the 
question. I had an aged relative with me, the Baroness Z., 
whom I was accompanying into Germany. We squeezed 
ourselves into the interior. 

Nothing could be clearly seen. The rain was lashing 
the glasses ; the leathern roof leaked ; we could hardly 
distinguish our companions. I had upon my feet the 
great feet of a great burgomaster of those parts, with pro- 
tuberant stomach built up to threefold elevation, and 
pendent chin of fit proportions hanging down to meet it. 
He took all things calmly, and with deep bass voice 
chuckled whenever a drop of rain from the leaking roof 
fell upon him. By his side sat some description of Ameri- 
can, not much the gentleman. From time to time he 



68 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 

drew from his pocket a long bottle, (of gin, porter, brandy, 
I know not — some alcoholic liquor,) and applied it to hte 
lips; when lie did not drink, he smoked. To the right 
and left were peasants and citizens lost in the shade : 
these came and went. The burgomaster was immovable ; 
so, too, was the American. In one comer a man of lofty- 
stature, and young, so far as I could judge, sat silent. 

Infernal machines were those old travelling arks, where 
space and air were both denied to you ; where your elbows 
were driven into your sides ; where your legs were wedged 
fast amidst innumerable packages ; where to draw a pocket 
handkerchief from your pocket was an affair tedious as 
diplomacy, and a great deal more laborious ; where, during 
twenty-four hours, you had the face of your opposite 
neighbour, with its inevitably besotted, bewildered expres- 
sion, jogging there ceaselessly before your eyes with the 
same idiotic movement. Infernal machines ! for he must 
be good indeed who does not begin to feel very wicked in 
one of them. 

The rain poured on incessantly. Impossible to open 
anything. The moisture from within tarnished the glasses ; 
the mud from without splashed them. There was a sick- 
ening odour of stale wine, stale tobacco, old cheese, and 
old crusts ; and there you sat amidst the snoring and the 
swaying to and fro of heads with great open mouths, 
which at some sharper jolt than usual, would suddenly 
shut themselves up, and then it was the turn of the eyes to 
open on you with their imbecile stare. We had neither 
thunder nor lightning ; nothing but this incessant deluge. 
Looking out, one could just distinguish the roofs of houses 
dripping with rain, and the flooded road that spirted up 
under our wheels, and the great pools of water formed in 
the meadows. Thick clouds were drawn around us on, 



THE HEGELIAN. 69 

every side, which added to the oppression of our atmo- 
sphere ; and yet the cold — the cold of a sleepless night, the 
cold of the drenched earth and the pouring skies, and a 
carriage soaked with rain — penetrated the very bones, and 
made one shrink into one's-self. 

The epoch we were in — it was 1 849-— was as cheerless 
as the scene which nature presented. 

In France. Socialism was rising into power j in Germany, 
whither we were travelling, revolutions had taken place, or 
were hourly expected. My aged companion and relative 
was in great fear. I endeavoured to reassure her ; but 
to me also everything looked black as night. I saw, 
through those gloomy showers, nothing but rising scaffolds ; 
revolutionary scaffolds stood out upon my horizon in every 
direction. 

At length the morning came — not with her scarf of 
gold, nor with roseate fingers } came in very simple robes 
-^-gray upon darker gray. 

Pale as it was, the day had dawned. And see the 
power of light ! In a moment the whole world changed 
its aspect. Order was triumphant everywhere, and, after 
all, a little conflict did no ill. And then it was the month 
of May, and this shower was falling upon the roofs of plea- 
sant cottages — thatched roofs, where wild flowers grow, 
and which project kindly over the wall, securing a sheltered 
space round the house. The velvet moss, which had taken 
a new lustre from the rain, enlivened even the dripping 
thatch ; the cottage windows, with their little round panes 
of glass imbedded in the leadwork, glistened out on us. 
These windows almost touched each other, and opened 
upon the well-stacked pile of logs. Moving in and out of 
the oval porch of carved wood, you saw the mistress and 
manager of all, her head covered with a scarlet handker- 



70 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 

chief. The ducks and the geese quack around her with 
ceaseless movement of their tails. Further on, one sees 
the peasant himself, yawning and stretching himself before 
the barn-door. Even our enemy, the rain, seems to re- 
bound gaily, and to dance upon the clean flag-stones which 
surround these pleasant homesteads. In the garden it 
falls on great globes of apple-blossoms and the gay cones of 
the lilac, and impresses on them an undulating and grace- 
ful movement. The tulips, proud as sultanas, quite uncon- 
cernedly let it glide down their gorgeous array; other 
flowers, with their petals thrown back, laugh as they shake 
off the petulant shower; the stocks and the wallflower 
embalm the air at every gust of wind. 

Under the roofs the swallows sit motionless, with neck 
outstretched, upon their nests; or sometimes hazard a 
rapid zig-zag flight, skimming the soil, and, returning, 
perch upon their nests, and there, with tail close pressed 
against the wall, chat with their little ones, or fill their 
open beaks. The sparrows — more audacious, great thieves 
and great brawlers, red republicans underneath their brown 
feathers — laugh at all these cataracts of rain. They, perched 
upon the tiles — they choose always the best houses — let 
the rain rain, and wrangle on : with strong beak and 
raised head, eating of everything, and eating always, and 
stunning the neighbourhood with their cries. 

And yonder the pigeons coo. They put out their slender 
heads from the holes of the dovecot ; then, with great noise 
of wing, they pounce down on some clean space in the 
court below, where, promenading with their little, timid, 
rapid steps, they peck here and there at some grains 
escaped from the sheaf, their necks changing like the opal 
as they move, and in a moment, scared at nothing, take 
flight again in a body. 



TEE HEGELIAN. 71 

But more than all, the orchards shine out as we pass 
them, in spite of the pale day, and the dissolving clouds, 
and the moistened earth. Through it all the apple-trees 
and the pear-trees, in the magnificence of their blossom, 
shed a ray as of victory. The mind, at mere sight of them, 
fills with hope. Revolutions ! — with those globes of roseate 
blossoms r i Scaffolds ! — in a land where men can wander 
under such coverts, amidst such splendour of the spring ? 

I know not why, unless it was to catch some sympathy 
for my own thoughts, that my glance now turned from the 
orchard to the interior of the diligence, which still went 
lumbering on. It did not penetrate to the American, for 
he was walled up in his cloud of smoke ; it glided past the 
burgomaster, stolid and imperturbable, and passing over 
sundry sleeping heads, rested in the corner on the youthful 
figure that I had hitherto rather divined than seen. 

All night that figure had remained there enveloped in 
shade. It had not slept. From hour to hour a clear voice, 
resonant and firm, had been raised to ask of some one on 
the roof, or in the rotonde, or elsewhere, if all went well 
with them. The voice had been answered in the frank tone 
of the good comrade, yet with something too of respect. 
Strange ! that figure, motionless and pensive, and which 
was not regarding me, destroyed in an instant the peaceful 
train of ideas I brought to it for sympathy ! 

He was a young man, hardly thirty ; the forehead high, 
the face pale, the eyes very large, blue, and soft ; he had 
an air of thought, of candour, of determination, as if pos- 
sessed by some fixed resolution. His mouth had a smile 
upon it ; a tawny beard descended in undulating lines to 
his chest. His stature was tall, his carriage lofty ; he had 
the air of command. There were no pistols, no poignard ; 
and yet I said to myself, with the invincible assurance of 



72 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 

a sudden presentiment, ' This man is some captain, going 
to stir up battle on the other side of the Rhine/ 

Such, in fact, he was. 

What brought us into communication 1 ? What broke 
the silence between us ? A nothing, a jolt of the diligence, 
the fatigue of my infirm relative, my anxious expression. 
He had the corner, which was the best place ; he rose, and 
with a frank smile, and a thousand charming attentions, 
installed the baroness in it, put his cloak under and round 
her feet. We talked. The burgomaster, the American, 
and all the rest still slept on. Of what did we talk 1 Of 
the rain, of the spring-time, of the uncertainties of fate, of 
the revolutions everywhere breaking out. Here his eyes 
flashed. 

" I am going there !" he said, throwing back his head, 
not with the air of a boaster, but of one rejoicing in some 
happy enthusiasm. " I am going there ; into my own Ger- 
many ! I re-enter my own country, and liberty re-enters 
with me." 

" Are you sure to conquer 1" 

" I am sure to combat." 

" The army of the State is numerous." 

". Ours is more so ; it is the nation." 

" You do not hesitate to embroil your own country?" 

" It must be !" For a moment he knit his brows, and 
seemed lost in thought ; then, raising his head, he con- 
tinued : — " Every one must have his fair place under the 
sun — or under the rain," he added, glancing with a smile 
at the window. " In fact, there must be bread for all, joy 
for all, leisure for all. There must be no disinherited 
children on the face of the earth; no longer must this 
man be corrupted by superfluous wealth, while this other 
is starving. Harvests ripen for all. The house of stone, 



THE HEGELIAN. 73 

good furniture, the easy and calm life, should be for 
all." 

At this moment he encountered the frightened expres- 
sion of the baroness. 

" I am not a Red, nor a confiscator of other men's goods, 
though appearance, it seems, is against me. I am higher. 
I wish nothing but justice, — nothing but what God wills. 
I wish equality." 

" Equality !" I exclaimed. " Since the days of Eden, it 
has not been known upon the earth. The day after you 
had made division of the spoil" 

" I divide no spoil ; I want to prepare the earth ; I 
want to remove all obstacles to progress ; I want to open 
a great career to humanity, to that young humanity which 
aspires. It claims its share of happiness, its right to re- 
joice, and it shall have it." 

" I fear that to the end of time there will be strong and 
feeble, the ugly and the beautiful, men honest and men 
vicious. What becomes of your equality?" 

The Captain shook his head. 

" These are old ideas," he said ; " the rags left us by the 
middle ages. The world advances to a social revolution ; 
it will leave its winter skin on the bushes of the month of 
May." 

" But those others— the obstructives as you call them — 
will defend their old customs." 

" I know it well." 

" And then V 

" And then — we kill them." 

This was said with a voice sad but inexorable. 

" If they would trust themselves to us," he continued, 
" they should wither out in peace. This they will not, and 
they cannot do." 



74 TEE NEAR HORIZONS. 

I contemplated with terror this melancholy smile, this 
sincere look, this insane goodness and candour, deluded by 
some horrible Utopia, decorated ■with flowers, and dripping 
with blood. An instant after, he resumed with a voice 
that slightly trembled, but which vibrated with an absolute 
confidence in himself — 

" Whatever is born, must die. This is an eternal law. 
No level was ever made, that did not destroy flowers as 
well as weeds. Our social revolution will issue from the 
tomb. To arrive at universal harmony, we must stifle the 
discordant sounds." 

" They will return from every side." 

« No !" 

This no was said simply with an overwhelming assurance. 

" But," I replied, " these discordant notes, they are living 
men." 

The Captain reflected ; then, in a low voice, said — 

" Yes, one hundred thousand heads." 

" A hundred thousand heads rolling from the scaffold, 
and millions of women in despair, children and mothers." 

" This morning were there no women in despair 1 no 
infants who wept on the earth 1 no fathers, or mothers, or 
poor people who died ?" 

" Some — yes — here and there." 

" Everywhere ! — on all sides of this desolated world, at 
every second there rises a cry of agony." 

" It is a world accursed, which we men have ruined, have 
lost." 

" That I do not believe." 

" What ! you do not believe yourself a sinner V* 

" No !" This other no was pronounced with the same 
absolute certainty. A moment after he added, with a 
softer expression — 



THE HEGELIAN-. 75 

" I trouble, I alarm you. But see you not that death 
mows down generation after generation — a little sooner, a 
little later, what matters it? We all fall at our given 
hour; all as the ploughshare lays us in the furrow. A 
single war, the wars of your Emperor, have killed hundreds 
of thousands of men." 

" I detest war." 

" The cholera which has just broken out in London, in 
Paris, will cut down thirty thousand men in a day." 

" That is God's doing." 

"Well?" 

" You are not God." 

The Hegelian regarded me with his bland, inexorable 
look. 

" I am God," he said. 

I shuddered. 

" I am God ! My thought is a ray of the Divine 
Thought, my will is a part of the Supreme Will ; the 
Great Heart which beats there above beats in me, in you, 
in all." 

A burlesque idea will sometimes traverse the mind in its 
most serious moods. I could not help looking opposite 
with a smile at the burgomaster ; the Captain followed my 
glance; he shrugged his shoulders, but continued with 
imperturbable calm — 

" Yes, he also, as well as others — only somewhat more 
enveloped. We are all waves of the one ocean, from which 
we emerge, into which we sink. God ! God is the world ! 
God vibrates in every plant, in every insect, in the sun 
above us, in these drops of rain about us." 

Then, returning to his own defence, he said — 

" I have a right to do what I do. I shall die — that is 
very possible ; others will die — that is certain. Humanity 



76 THE FEAR HORIZONS. 

advances perhaps through destruction. Did not the Israel- 
ites traverse the Red Sea? A reviving humanity "will 
nourish on a youthful earth, and the golden age will re- 
descend from heaven." 

I, feeling all speech powerless to cope with so great a 
folly, did what the fashionable world will think very ridicu- 
lous, puritanical in short. I took out my New Testament, 
and gave it him. The Captain extended his hand, received 
it, looked at it, and as he put it into his bosom, he said, 
with a serene and radiant expression— the expression of 
one of the illuminati — 

" I know it well — your Bible." 

" If you know it, you have seen there the true law of 
universal love 1 " 

Without answering me, he pursued his own thought. 

" I have more than once studied its pages ; I have pene- 
trated its deeper and concealed meaning. It has an appa- 
rent, and it has a mysterious signification." 

" It should be read with an honest, simple spirit. It 
was written for simple men." 

A light flashed into his eyes. " You have the letter," 
he said ; " we have the spirit." 

After this we fell into a profound silence. 

Miserable world, thought I, if ever God delivers it to 
such fallen angels as these ! 

The Captain broke the silence, and with a tone of kind- 
ness, in which, however, one traced the habitual exercise of 
authority, he said — 

" We are approaching Bale. Permit me to make a pro- 
position. Madame is timid, and you will find Germany in 
flames. Let me accompany you. With me you will pass 
everywhere. I will leave you on the frontiers of Prussia ; 
it will be for me only the delay of two days." 



THE HEGELIAN. 77 

He made the proposition in simple good faith. Such 
self-negation, such complete candour and sincerity beamed 
in his countenance, that I could not but feel touched at 
his offer. Should I have done as much — I, the wiser one, 
who looked down on him in pity ? 

I refused it nevertheless. He insisted just as far as 
good breeding permitted. Then gathering together his 
cloak and some baggage, he called to the postilion. The 
diligence stopped, he descended, his companions grouped 
themselves around him ; with a rapid movement, full of 
energy, and a sort of poetic fervour, he waved his adieu to 
us, cast one look up into the skies, then struck off across 
the plain to gain the Ehine. 

I was bewildered. This candour of a child, with this 
delirium of pride, this kind soul with this inexorable hard- 
ness ! God at once adored and denied ! What an abyss ! 

Terrible creatures these ideologists ! 

To spare some trouble to an aged woman, this man 
would willingly have traversed two hundred leagues, and 
this same man, coldly, with that beautiful smile upon his 
lips, would send a hundred of his fellow-creatures to the 
scaffold. Just now, to save us from some anxiety, he 
would have risked for himself the danger of delay ; and 
if, four days hence, we should be brought before him as 
obstructives to human progress, he would order our decapi- 
tation without the least remorse. He would not even find 
it necessary to harden his heart against us. No. From 
the depths of his Absolute, from the centre of his Eternity, 
he is indifferent to the tears of the day, and the death of a 
transitory generation. Proud fatalist, with a calm, un- 
trembling hand, he would baptize the earth with blood, 
contemplating the gay futurity that is to advance crowned 
with roses. 



78 THE FEAR HORIZONS. 

Truth ! Truth ! thou indeed art worth all we suffer for 
thee. Truth, thou savest us from madness ; without thee 
we should be tossed like a dismasted vessel on the billows 
of our own thoughts. Through the bright heavens, and 
through the abysses of the night, I have sought for thee ; 
I have found thee ; thou wert not far from me ; truth of 
the gospel, I clasp thee to my heart ! 

Whilst I, with my thoughts and my prayers, followed 
the Captain, the diligence entered with great clatter into 
the old town of Bale. 

This time we saw none of its curiosities. We left the 
Palace of Justice, and its red sculptures, in peace, and the 
stork with her traditional nest on the roof of the church. 

The hotel of The Three Kings was full of families from 
Baden, taking shelter from the political storm. We con- 
sulted our host in some alarm. " Oh, it is nothing at all !" 
said our contented Boniface. " There are no refolutions" 
he assured us in his Swiss accent " The Governments are 
in flight — foila tout J But order is not disturbed." 

" But the King of Bavaria V* 

"Fled— Us' 'est saufe !" 

"And the Grand-Duke of Baden ?" 

"Saufe — il s'est saufe J" 

"And the King of Prussia?" 

"II n'est pas encore saufe — Ah, bah ! it is nothing !" 

All this he said with the most paternal air in the world, 
which made us smile, if it did not completely reassure us. 

However, we resolve to continue our journey. We had 
cogent reasons for so doing. On the morrow we set forth 
again. 

There was revolution apparent everywhere. The train 
which took us, brought to the German frontier some body 
of volunteers, with the scarlet plume in their hats. They 



THE HEGELIAN. 79 

were exiles returning to their country, — young men, ardent, 
inflamed, shouting hurrahs of victory. 

In the boat that carried us down the Rhine nobody at 
all. Not a single passenger. Yes, there were two Jews, 
whom business could induce to run whatever risk there 
was. They took possession of the vacant saloon, and as it 
happened to be their Sabbath-day, they recited their prayers 
■ — the prayer especially called the Assault — with linen bands 
rolled round the arm, and a veil thrown over the head, and 
with alternate rhythmical sentences, like a piece of counter- 
point. 

As we approached the insurgent towns, loud cries were 
heard, and the report of fire-arms, explosions of triumph 
which were either to welcome or defy us. At Mannheim, 
a drunken soldier, the republican cockade in his shako, 
came, escorted by a band armed with scythes, to deliver 
to us, on the landing-place, a discourse on the rights of 
humanity ; uproarious clamours from the quay supported 
him. 

In Prussia nothing stirred. It was a calm too complete 
not to be factitious ; a calm under which one felt as it were 
the ebullition of the rising storm. 

The only external symptom we met with of social dis- 
order, promenaded itself in the little town we inhabited, 
under the form of JBurschen, displaying a wondrous quan- 
tity of hair, more than the sacred race of long-haired 
kings ever boasted. They passed and re-passed under our 
windows, arm in arm, clothed in short frock-coats of apple 
green, of celestial blue, the boldest of them having the red 
cap on their heads. The triangle, emblem of equality, the 
level or the axe, a sort of jewellery in fine steel, glittered 
on the front of it ; some even displayed a miniature guillo- 
tine. Under the cap escaped silken fleece for hair, light or 



80 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 

dark or tawny ; and they sang to the cadenced step, with 
flashing eyes, and defiant countenance. 

This exhibition did not last long. Three or four regi- 
ments took up their quarters in the little town, then some 
squadrons of cavalry, then some artillery, then some 
dragoons, till a corps-cCarmee had formed itself. Farewell 
to our students, farewell to our fantastic perukes, all has 
disappeared in the twinkling of an eye. 

I shall never forget those beautiful evenings — melan- 
choly nevertheless, for civil war muttered on the horizon — 
when, under the acacias in blossom, we listened to the 
military music, — that admirable metallic music, so correct, 
so disciplined, under which throbs a spirit all the more 
ardent, because it is well restrained, I shall never forget 
that overture to Tannhailser, which was to me the revela* 
tion of a new world of harmony, with its introduction, re- 
minding me of the gigantic architecture of Egypt, and 
those ironical phrases insinuating themselves into tha 
melody like an infernal laugh ; while the whole rose, like 
a rising tide, in one swelling chant of all mingled emotions, 
sadness and agony, and heroism and worship. 

At these times, I know not why, the memory of my 
Hegelian captain returned to me. Before these troops 
which were about to enter Bavaria and besiege Kadstadt, I 
could only feel compassion for him. 

Sometimes this metallic orchestra gave out a patriotic 
song, then, suddenly pausing, the sonorous voices of the 
soldiers took up the melody, repeating the refrain; and 
there was, in the contrast between the metallic sound of 
the band and the flexible sweetness of the human voice, 
something unusual, something unexpected, that touched 
the heart, like the contrasts one meets with in the moral 
world. 



THE HEGELIAN. 81 

One fair morning all this military array departed. The 
sun rose, and there was nothing but the scattered hay 
in the market-place. Our birds sang with the greater 
courage, — the thrush in the meadows, the nightingale in 
the grove. 

Some way out of the town the several regiments halted 
to receive the Prince of Prussia, who commanded the expe- 
dition. They halted at a spot I knew well, — under the 
cherry-trees, and where the grass had been lately mown. 
How they laughed, how joyous they were, as on some green 
and shady slope they threw their knapsack on the ground, 
and the shako from their head ! All on a sudden an elec- 
tric shock ran through the ranks : " To your arms ! the 
Prince ! the Prince !" 

In an instant all were on their feet. The Prince of 
Prussia galloped along the battalions, sword drawn, with 
lofty mien. Stopping before each regiment, he pronounced 
some words with/ rapid utterance : Hilf Gott — Gott mit 
uns ! Salvos of cannon and musketry responded. 

He placed himself at their head, with his staff and his 
group of young aides-de-camp : Vorivcirts ! and the army 
put itself in motion, the several corps one after the other ; 
the artillery, with its cannon, making the earth tremble ; 
the hussars, clad in their sombre colours ; the lancers, with 
their crimson pennons ; the dragoons, with their golden 
helmets; the solid infantry, advancing with well-timed 
step. As each corps moved on, it raised its song of war. 

It was a grand, a royal spectacle ; one of those pictures 
which twenty years of tears and joys cannot efface from 
the memory. The fresh and fragrant breeze played over 
the landscape, and unrolled the military standards ; never 
was a sky more radiant, never was an army more elated : 
all care seemed swept from their brow. Nevertheless, to 



82 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 

nie the glorious spectacle brought with it one thought of 
mortal sadness : it was no foreign invader that these troops 
marched to encounter, but children of the same soil, speak- 
ing the same language, — Germans like themselves. 

This is what I could not make an old general, a friend 
of ours, comprehend, who had been left behind to guard 
the position. 

Ten days had not passed before there arrived amongst 
us messengers swelling with their great tidings : the Duchy 
of Baden had submitted, Bavaria had been reconquered, 
governments, kings, grand dukes, all had been restored. 

Eadstadt held out a little longer. Then commenced 
reprisals which were severe, and martial law, terribly expe- 
ditious. 

" Fisullies ! " cried the general, who had long ago ceased 
his attempts to bring into order the rebellious vowels of 
the French alphabet. " Fisullies the chiefs ! Fisullies the 
soldiers ! Fisullies the blockheads who let them do it." If 
I named this one or that one, the general answered by an 
expressive gesture, took aim with his walking stick, pulled 
an imaginary trigger, and uttered with a laugh his absurd 
Hsullie ! 

This is all I have been ever able to learn of the Hegelian. 



THE SPRINGS. 



HIS is the name given to a small enclosure of 
the mountain, situated about a third of the way 
up. The firs, which grow very high, and are 
very thick there, suddenly open out, and leave a free 
space ; an orchard, planted with apple, pear, and half-wild 
plum-trees, with a strip or two of field full of potatoes and 
lucerne. These rise steeply to the forest. Beyond, on the 
very edge of the wood, stands a rustic dwelling, with a 
fountain before it ! Four springs incessantly flowing into 
an old wooden trough, carved long ago, and embroidered 
with mosses, some velvet-like in texture, adhering to the 
bark which still covers the trough ; others floating in long 
green filaments that for ever wave in the water as it escapes. 
The situation is solitary. The inhabitants seldom go down 
to the plain ; this enclosure affords them occupation enough, 
and the people from the plain still more seldom come up 
to the Springs. It is not a chdlet; there is only one 
cow, not any butter to sell, nor provisions to take to the 
fruiterers. 

On Sunday, the mother or the daughters, the son or 
the father, make themselves smart, and go by turns to a 
preaching about three miles off. 

In summer, some child, gathering raspberries amidst 
the labyrinth of brushwood, branches of broken fir-trees, 
fallen trunks, and brambles spreading in all directions, 
comes sometimes with its basket to drink at the Springs, 



84 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 

and to sit in the deep shade that, at five o'clock in the 
evening, the pines cast over the fields. 

There is a moment of positive transfiguration for this 
small domain. This is in the month of May, when the 
orchard, enclosed by its dark frame, blossoms like a bridal 
nosegay. Will it be believed, this spotless white rather 
saddens me ? I prefer the enclosure in the midst of sum- 
mer, when each separate vegetation colours the ground with 
its own particular tint ; or still more, in autumn, when the 
wild pears grow golden, .the crab-apples crimson, and the 
crops are heaped up under the granary pent-house. At 
such times, a smoke may be seen rising from a sheltered 
spot near the house ; a bright fire is burning under a shed 
hung round with trusses of hemp. There sit mother and 
daughter, noisily beating out the sheaves. This sound is 
almost the only one you hear ; the folks at the Springs are 
not great talkers, nor great singers either. 

During the dull November mornings, when it is very 
cold on the top of the mountain, and the ground is strewn 
with wild fruit not worth the gathering, the enclosure 
sometimes receives a visit from a stranger — the bear — the 
great brown bear — the harmless bear of our Jura, strays 
down in the fog, and before the inhabitants have opened 
their door, comes and stuffs himself with crab-apples. He 
would willingly enjoy a little honey too, but the row of 
hives leans up against the house ; and besides, they are 
but poor ones ; the young July swarms, which would die 
in the plains for want of flowers, being sent here, where 
they can still get at some late clover ; to be taken back in 
September, only two being left, closed up during the winter 
with little fir-branches. 

When Master Bear has feasted sufficiently, he trots off 
again into the wood. Never has he allowed himself the 



TEE SPRINGS. 85 

least impropriety, such as carrying away the goat, the 
heifer, or some stray child. He is indeed a most saintly 
character this bear : he lives upon little ; abstains from 
flesh : the most he permits himself is to crop the young 
barley in June, when about the length of his tongue. 
The people at the Springs once saw him; if not the 
father, the grandfather did; at all events, they firmly 
believe in him, and on December nights, when the south 
wind howls in gusts through the forest, bending the firs, 
and making them groan again, the frightened children 
think they hear Bruin growling in distress in the depths 
of the wood. 

In winter all is white, the branches bend under the 
snow; great drifts block up the path, and flakes fall 
silently; you only hear the crystalline voice of the 
Springs ; the flail of the father busy in the barn with his 
son ; and in the house, the little monotonous murmur of 
the spinning-wheels. But when one of those fine January 
days comes, when the sky is blue throughout, and the sun 
marches on royally crowned with beams, and not a breath 
is stirring, — there is in this sparkling enclosure, in these 
firs rearing their jagged pyramids — each spike of which is 
turned to a diamond, in these rocks that look through 
them, in the pure atmosphere and the great calm, — there is 
something at once very striking, solemn, and splendid. 

In May, the firs are in flower ; the orchard has not yet 
opened out its blossoms, which at present show in abund- 
ance, as little red * balls at the edge of the dark-green of 
the wood. You would say that summer in her haste had 
overturned a basket of cherries there. 

When I went up thither, however, it was neither the 
season of snow nor of fruit, it was on a beautiful Easter 
Sunday. 



86 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 

" The girl at the Springs wants you," one of the women 
in the village had said to me ; " you '11 just have to go at 
once there." 

"What does she want?" 

" Who can say % She has been too much at her books." 

I smiled, and took the way through the meadows. 
There were no leaves on the trees, none on the bushes, 
and yet it was the flowery Easter tide. 

The black thorn projected its stiff boughs, covered with 
white buds and open blossoms, proclaiming the spring 
from every hedge. Tufts of violets spotted the brown 
grass of winter with their blue ; green blades piercing 
through it too here and there. The air was filled with a 
thousand discreet murmurs from insects returning to life, 
newly-wakened flies flew hither and thither, long black 
lines of ants crossed the pathway. You could see the sap 
rising in the still leafless branches, — some were scarlet, some 
darker red, some yellow as rods of gold. 

The country was bare. A pretty keen north wind 
careered over its hollows, the trees had no young twigs, 
no nests, no secrets, the glance that wandered to the dis- 
tance came back disappointed, and yet April reigned. At 
its bidding, spring scents rose from the earth. The tiny 
guitars, the unpretending Jews'-harps of instrumentalists, 
concealed in cups of flowers, celebrated the return of the 
leafy season. April laughed in the air; you felt that 
warm showers were on the way, leaf -bringing showers which 
would cover the hedges with a green mantle. The earth 
had not yet donned her variegated garments, but she had 
unstiffened ; she was getting warm. 

When I drew near the mountain, and plunged into the 
forest, the face of things changed. The pines, always green, 
wrapped me in their shade. Underneath them there is 



THE SPRINGS. 87 

neither spring nor summer ; you only feel the influence of 
their unchangeableness ; always a soft arborescent moss 
covering the shady spots with a carpet that absorbs the 
light; always the smooth ground spreading away under 
the colonnade of trees ; always an equably lighted atmo- 
sphere • always this profound peace ; always this air play- 
ing freshly round the smooth, straight trunks that rise in 
the immense forest nave. 

As I ascended, as the plain sunk, my eye travelled to 
greater and greater depths. Through openings in the trees 
I could see very far below me in the distance, the old 
town with its old Burgundian towers ; further still, at the 
extreme horizon, the white Alps ranging themselves tier 
above tier, with the giant Mont Blanc calmly throned upon 
their heads. 

The wood was impregnated with a freshness unknown 
to the plain ; one inhaled there a keen aromatic air, which 
would have felt almost raw, had it not been tempered by 
some sunbeams falling on all open places, lighting up the 
raspberry bushes and brambles that grew there. 

As I went along, I thought of the family at the Springs. 
Worthy people, though rather odd. Father, mother, sons, 
all hard workers, not mixing much with their neighbours, 
taciturn, dull-eyed, and absent; very intelligent as to what 
concerned their own affairs; but half afraid of their neigh- 
bours, and keeping them at a distance. 

Margaret, the eldest daughter, had done the same till 
the age of twenty. Then she suddenly took to leaving her 
solitude ; every Sunday she went down through the wood, 
accompanied the other young people to the villages round, 
and came back late. 

Her father and mother did not object to this ; on the 
contrary, solitary themselves in their ways, they were glad 



88 THE NEAR HORIZON'S. 

to pusii their children a little into the world. The sons 
did not venture out ; they were awkward, and they knew 
it, were not up, as they said, to talking to the girls. But 
Margaret, with only her twenty summers over her head, 
her tall figure, and her lofty air, was not so easily abashed. 

All at once, without any apparent reason, she left off 
going out. Her mother wished to talk to her .about the 
dances down in the valley; she only wept. Her father 
tried might and main to send her off there again ; she 
locked herself up in her attic. 

One evening that her young companions came to look 
for her, she went so high up into the wood, she knew all 
its hiding-places so well, that not a youth among them, 
looking ever so cleverly, was able to find her out. That 
night, at eleven o'clock, she returned home. 

Gradually she grew sadder and sadder, and shut herself 
up more. She would sit spinning at the window without 
even looking out : spring came, she went on spinning ; she 
no longer worked in the garden, she who used to be so 
fond of it. But she read a great deal, especially in the 
large Bible. 

" That 's what has done it !" said her father, and he took 
her books away. Margaret said nothing ; for a moment 
her spirits seemed to return, but it was a mere flash. She 
got gloomier than ever, spun more diligently, then left off 
spinning altogether, or very nearly so ; sat pensive in the 
corner of the window; refused to eat, and took to her 
bed. 

Twelve was striking when I got to the Springs. A few 
bees humming round the hives, which stood on a plank 
before the window, were trying their wings in an April 
sunbeam. The water gushed and danced with a fresh 
warbling sound. In the stable, the prolonged lowing of 



THE SPRINGS. 89 

the cow was heard 3 she was conscious that, out of door, the 
grass was growing green. A handsome black tom-cat, with 
gentle, limped eyes, had settled himself on the threshold of 
the barn, enjoying the sun in supreme idleness. A pleasant 
smell of good rustic soup spread all round the farmhouse. 
Everywhere reigned perfect order and deep silence, suggest- 
ing thoughts of a simple life, which opened out upon the 
soul like sudden peeps into an unknown land, very beautiful 
and very good, that we have been skirting unconsciously. 

The noise made by my entrance brought the mother out 
of the adjoining room ; she looked at me without saying a 
word, half surprised, half pleased, but surprise prevailed, 
and she remained motionless and embarrassed. We ex- 
changed preliminary civilities. 

" Your daughter is ill 1" 

The mother's face fell. " She has been too much at her 
books." 

" She sent for me ?" 

Without further answer, the mother stood on one side to 
let me enter, and then followed me in. 

The room was low but cheerful, and wainscoated with 
deal. There were two spinning-wheels in the two windows, 
a table, walnut-wood chairs well polished, a clock in a 
wooden case, with a glazed opening, through which one saw 
the oscillations of the pendulum. In the corner stood a 
curtainless bed ; on that bed lay Margaret. 

" I brought her down here," the mother said to me ; 
" up-stairs she would be too lonely." 

You heard nothing but the monotonous sound of the 
pendulum, and a sort of cracking noise before the stroke, 
each time the needle reached the quarters. 

Margaret was dressed in a brown woollen petticoat, the 
wool of their own sheep, and homespun. A blue handker- 



90 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 

chief, with white bunches of flowers, was crossed over her 
breast. The only unusual thing was, that instead of wear- 
ing a black cap trimmed with lace, her hair floated at 
random round her face. And then the apron was wanting 
— a decided sign of moral perturbation ; and her shoes too, 
strong leather shoes, strongly soled, which I saw standing, 
against the wall. 

Margaret was lying on her back, pale, her marked fea- 
tures standing out from the wainscot, her eyes fixed on the 
ceiling, her hands clenched. There was about this calm 
of hers a certain character of determination, defiance, — I 
might almost say, despair. 

I drew near. 

"You are ill, Margaret?" 

Margaret did not answer. 

" She has not eaten anything for the last three days," 
broke in the mother. " We could hardly get her to take a 
drop of cold water to wet her lips and her forehead." 

I remarked a sort of dampness on the young girl's fore- 
head, and saw that the hair on her temples was wet. I 
tried to take her hand, but her fingers contracted. 

"You are dressed; you have been up a little, then, 
Margaret V 

Not a word. 

" It is in your mind you are suffering, Margaret 1" 

She turned her large eyes, the rest of her face remaining 
rigid, and fixed them on me. 

" You wished to see me V* 

With a sudden energetic motion she rose, threw her feet 
out of the bed, and sat on the edge of it. 

" You had something to say to me V 

Margaret looked full at me. "I am lost !" she said, in 
a firm, rather choked voice, but without any violent out- 



THE SPRINGS. 91 

burst. She had measured her strength against this thought ; 
she had lived in the contemplation of it. It was one of 
which she knew the length and breadth and height. 

A strange feeling came over me, almost of joy. This 
young girl occupied with the care of her soul at an age 
when, bewildered with pleasure, few inquire whether in- 
deed they have one or not ; this young girl seemed to me 
rather saved than lost ; consequently in a voice vibrating 
with cheerful hope — 

"You think yourself lost?" I replied. "It is a good 
sign, Margaret. You will not remain where you are ; you 
will seek, you will find" 

She shook her head ; then in a monotonous tone, as if 
speaking to herself, her eyes fixed on I know not what 
vague something where nothing was, — 

" It is all over !" she said. " I went back to the world ; 
I did so though I was well warned ; I did so in spite of 
God ; / have committed the unpardonable sin ; there is no 
more forgiveness !" 

" What are you saying, Margaret ? Are you to limit the 
powers of God ! What creature dares to utter such impious 
words as these, — no more forgiveness !" 

"Another sin ! another sin !" cried the young girl, clasp- 
ing her hands above her head. 

I went on to say, very calmly indeed, " No doubt another 
sin ; and as long as we speak we shall go on sinning." 

She remained in the same desolate attitude. I gently 
unclasped her hands, and succeeded in taking one which 
she left in my grasp. 

"Margaret, do you not know that God loves you?" 

" He used to love me ; I turned my back upon Him. 5 ' 

"You believe in Him ?" 

" As the devils do." 



92 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 

"You are sorry to have offended Him ?" 

She did not answer, bnt tore away her hand and rang it. 

"Do the devils mourn their sins, Margaret?" 

"Yesterday!" cried the young girl, following her own 
train of thought without being arrested by mine; "yes- 
terday, I might have been forgiven." 

She rose distractedly, her head thrown back, and began 
to walk up and down the room with tottering steps, I fol- 
lowing her. She continued saying in the same monotonous 
voice, broken every now and then by a wild cry — 

" Yesterday, I might have been saved. I did not 
choose." 

"Do you choose now, Margaret?" 

" Too late ! too late l» 

" Margaret, in God's name ! Yes, you are lost if you 
will ; you have not chosen ; be it so ; but is there not a 
Saviour in heaven, Margaret ?" 

"Too late ! too late!" repeated she, setting the words to 
the sound made by her uneven steps. 

" It is not then Easter Sunday to-day ? Those who re- 
joice on earth, those who sing up there in heaven, are mad 
then 1 The dead Christ has remained dead ; is it not so, 
Margaret?" 

She continued her cadenced walk, repeating all the 
while, in a low voice — " Too late ! too late !" 

She was fearfully beautiful ; drawn up to her full height, 
tottering, her hands sometimes thrown out before her with 
a tragic gesture, sometimes clasped ; her pale face subju- 
gated by the despotism of despair. 

Then a terrible thought crossed my mind, but I would 
not admit it. I pressed Margaret hard ; I drove her from 
one entrenchment to another ; I shewed her the cross of 
Jesus; I repeated to her the self-complaints of St Paul^ 






THE SPRINGS. 93 

and his cry of triumph. I was indignant ; I was overcome ; 
I wept. Margaret did not listen ; at last she fell upon the 
edge of the bed, and remained there speechless. 

I fell there beside her ; the day was getting on ; all was 
indeed over. Margaret was mad, with that appalling mad- 
ness which reasons, argues — is armed on every side with 
logic — finds a fearful satisfaction in the depths of its own 
despair. 

While I was silent, my soul lost in the contemplation of 
this abyss, Margaret raised her head, then bent towards 
me gracefully, as if to listen. Her forehead cleared, her 
eyes swam in light, a heavenly smile parted her lips ; join- 
ing her raised hands in ecstasy — 

" Thanks ! " she cried, in a voice that might have thrilled 
the angels. " Thanks ! I have got peace ! Thanks ! I 
am saved. I shall see my God ! Jesus has spoken to me. 
I belong to Him, to Jesus." She wiped her dripping 
temples. "Can this indeed be me? Yes it is; saved, 
saved !" She threw a wondering glance around, and saw me. 
" I believe ! You have done me good. I have faith. I have 
it here." And she pressed both her hands to her heart. 

I know not why, but this burst of happiness did not 
expand mine. However : 

"God be praised!" I said. "And now that you are 
more calm " — Margaret's brow contracted a little — " leave 
off this train of thought; you are ill." She shook her 
head. " Try to sleep." 

I went on saying kind words to her, — gentle, caressing 
words, such as one would whisper in the ear of a feverish 
child. Putting aside all idea of uncertainty, all that could 
shake the electrical moral atmosphere, I tried to confirm 
her in her happiness as in a permanent state out of which 
she was never more to be disturbed. 



94 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 

I was still speaking when her face changed; she stretched 
out her hand to silence me. I stopped; she remained 
still for a moment ; then, with a cry, the vehemence and 
desolation of which I shall never forget — "He is there !" 
she said, pointing to the corner of the room. She rose up 
erect, her hair standing on end, made a step forward, with 
a fixed eye, and hand still extended. 

"He is there!" 

" Who V 

" He who has lost me !" 

" You are saved, Margaret, you are saved !" 

I had seized hold of her arm ; I shook her as though 
to waken her out of her delusion. She did not even look 
at me. 

Her mother sat there silent and stupified. 

" I was saved ; I listened to him ; I am lost !" 

" It is not true !" I cried vehemently. Margaret raised 
her finger. 

" Hush, God is speaking to me !" . . . . Then, in a very 
low, sweet voice, " My daughter, thou hast doubted ! I had 
forgiven thee, my daughter; .... my child, why hast 
thou done so % n 

"This is madness, Margaret, it is a delusion of the 
wicked one." 

Margaret again began the same wild, uneven walk as 
before ; only now I had to support her, and she no longer 
reasoned. At one moment, she listened to the hissing 
whispers of Satan the accuser ; at another, to that counter- 
feit voice of God, those tenderly inexorable accents which 
sealed her doom. Her screams were sometimes maniacal ; 
then came tears and tenderness, which melted my heart ; 
then fits of silence more fearful still. 

As for me, I could not speak. I could only look up to 



THE SPRINGS. 95 

heaven with that ardent look, almost indeed audacious, 
but glowing with so much pity, such strength of love and 
faith, and such humility beneath the boldness, that it goes 
straight to the throne, to claim the tenderest mercies of 
God. 

And then, in a rapid revulsion of feeling, I asked myseli 
whether indeed this mad woman might not be the only 
wise one. On which side really was the insanity ; on hers, 
heart-broken, her eyes drowned in tears, her breast beaten 
by her hands ; or on ours, frivolous, forgetful ; on ours, 
the pious, the redeemed, indulgent to ourselves, and lulling 
'nur souls with the repeated cry, Peace ! Peace ! 

No, my Saviour, Thou art not a God of despair ; Thou 
art a God of joy, because Thou art a God of pardon. 

And yet something like a shiver ran through my veins. 
This lasted all the day. This poor maniac who saw Satan, 
who heard the Lord, who weighed in the balance of the 
last day each word that had escaped her lips, each thought 
that had risen to her heart; this mourner who took in 
earnest the terrible realities of the Bible, forgetting only 
Jesus ; this poor woman, deranged, sick, whom I wished to 
console ; I in my sound senses, I firm in my faith ; she 
shook me to the most secret centre of my soul. 

When the day got low, Margaret, exhausted, sunk on 
her bed. Her father and brothers had returned. 

" You must go back," said the mother ; " we are much 
obliged, but you do no good." 

" Shall I send for a doctor V 

" No. Her father was right about it. She has been too 
much at her boohs." 

I was disturbing the family; there was nothing indeed 
to be done, or rather the only thing to be done was what I 
could do anywhere. The God of the forests, of the moun- 



96 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 

tain and the valley, the God of sorrowing hearts, is every- 
where present. I walked very quickly under the fir-trees ; 
I wanted rapid exercise. For a moment stopping at the 
lower border of the wood on the first open ground com- 
manding the glaciers and the lakes, I inhaled the free air ; 
I gazed upon the wide expanse before me ; I dazzled my- 
self with light ; drank in the ineffable calm of the fields, 
and then I took my way along the meadows, and through 
the corn-fields. 

Below me, beside the brook, on a wild pear-tree, and 
perched on its highest branch, looking steadily at the sun 
which was setting in his purple, or rather in that blended 
glory of scarlet and orange which overflowed the West, sat 
a redbreast, with throat distended and quivering wings. 
The sound of my steps had not disturbed him. He was 
revelling in all this magnificence; he was chanting his 
evening chant ; a chant of adoration, love, and hope ; a 
trusting, happy song, an humble ditty, sparkling all over 
with little cries of joy— a glorious hymn ; it was one and 
all of these. The flood of light inundated him ; he was 
lost in it quite ; he sang as long as the radiance of the 
horizon lasted ; then, when the sun had left our hemi- 
sphere, when the pomp of his setting rays was over, the 
redbreast, flapping his little wings, went to shelter under 
the nearest bush. 

I do not know how it came about, but peace had returned 
to my heart. 




A POOR BOY. 

JOOR, and, moreover, ugly to a degree hardly per- 
missible, except to very clever people indeed, 
and lie was half-witted. 

He was the son of a shrewd countryman, a shoemaker 
by trade. His father, a great talker, musical too, in his 
leisure hours, had gray, wandering eyes, a countenance very 
difficult exactly to decipher, with something about it chang- 
ing, slippery, and evasive, reminding one of a serpent under 
dry leaves. Added to which, he had an abrupt voice ; and 
was hard to live with at home. 

On wet Sundays our shoemaker would study an old 
book of the year 1600, full of formulas, semi-magical, semi- 
medical. Albertus Magnus had contributed more to it 
than Esculapius. Spectacles on nose, he would rapidly 
turn it over, then meditate in a way that brought him the 
reputation of mege* One day this neighbour, to-morrow 
that, would come at nightfall, to ask for some specific, now 
for the cow, now for the wife ; the usual fee being a 
sausage, or, better still, a bottle of wine drunk at the 
village tavern. 

You should have heard the marvellous stories our man 
made them swallow. Of young fellows well thrashed, rifle- 
shots, broken teeth, balls in the very centre of the white 
— it was all one to him ! Then came mysterious stories 
of cattle bewitched, girls who had drunk love-potions, 
* Something less than magician and more than doctor. 



98 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 

while the peasants gazed at him open-mouthed. "Eh, 
he 's a wise one, he is ! " and they nodded significantly. 

It must be owned that if our friend was not exactly a 
sorcerer, he had at least a singular aptitude for work of 
various kinds ; farmer, carpenter, blacksmith, rifleman — at 
need he was one and all of these. " He has some charm," 
his neighbours would say. 

The shoemaker let them say on, and laughed a silent 
sort of laugh, which did not brighten his impenetrable 
face. 

He made a great deal of money ; yet had nothing, or 
next to nothing laid by, for it was spent as fast as it came 
in. This, he averred, was all his wife's fault. No order, 
no comfort, no foresight — a gawky slattern ! He did not 
scruple to tell her this, and the poor, weak creature, sure 
to excite her master's anger every time he chanced to see 
her, had, over and above an indisputable natural gift of 
Cupidity, all the awkwardness that arises from constant 
fault-finding. 

She lived in a hostile atmosphere, her husband ridicul- 
ing whenever he did not revile her. Her gait was uncer- 
tain, she was incoherent, her mind always clouded by the 
fear of doing wrong ; her hands often trembling, though 
she was in the prime of life ; her glance vacillating, too, 
but it was only constant fear which prevented it being 
straightforward. 

Her home — had she indeed a home 1 She had never in 
her life said, my kitchen, my bed ! Her house was always 
dirty and disorderly; not that she did not sweep and 
brush, especially in the first years of her married life, but 
she had no faculty, none of that calm necessary to sys- 
tematic working. Her thoughts, all incomplete, whirled 
round in her head as if driven by the wind. As years 



A POOR BOY. 99 

increased, her activity grew less ; not because she was 
gaining habits of reflection, but becoming more and more 
dispirited. 

Without having thought the matter out, she had a vague 
sense that the less her husband saw her, the more peace 
she had ; so she bestirred herself as little as she possibly 
could. 

In the morning, she would drag herself to the well in an 
old cap, an old jacket, an old petticoat ; having drawn up 
her bucket full, she would languidly wash her potatoes, go 
in again, put the dinner on the fire, and, with inefficient 
hand, brush the kitchen a little. 

As soon as she heard the master's voice, she spilled the 
water, let fall the broom, and the moment her work was 
over, would sit squatting on the hearthstone, and remain 
there, in the darkest corner, for hours together. 

In the adjoining room sat the master amidst his hides, 
drawing thread after thread, and, under his spectacles, 
casting an evil eye at her if she ever ventured across the 
threshold. She did so as little as possible. Such was 
their domestic life. 

A son was growing up in this house. 

The father, a great reader, pedantic, and pretentious, 
had chosen to call him Ulysses. Never was hapless new- 
comer on our earth saddled with a more palpable misnomer. 

The shoemaker, disappointed in his wife, built great 
hopes upon his son ; he would be this, that, and the other ; 
he would make a gentleman of him ! The mother, for her 
part, made him in her own likeness. 

As a mere urchin, he had a dishevelled head, with two 
round prominent eyes, wandering, colourless, scared like 
his mother's, dubious like his father's. Beneath was the 
most inconceivably twisted nose ever seen, a mouth from 



100 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 

ear to ear, the whole mounted upon two interminable bow- 
legs, a badly-made body, and arms whose dexterity might 
alone have excused their length ; but had they been short 
as puffin's wings, they could not have been more awkward. 

Only, whether he inherited it of his father, or owed it 
to a certain inherent innocence, Ulysses did everything 
with an imperturbable assurance. True, he did everything 
ill, but he did it with good heart. If he took up a mug, 
twice out of five times he would break it ; if he moved a 
chair, he let it fall ; if he lit the fire, he blew the cinders 
into the porridge-pot ; if he tried to feed the cow, he would 
infallibly have put out her eye with his fork, but that the 
worthy animal, who knew him from a child, always turned 
away at once. Nothing daunted him, however, and when 
his father, who hesitated to acknowledge inherent inveterate 
awkwardness in his son, would storm and discharge, out of 
his workshop, double and triple volleys of epithets by no 
means select, Ulysses would look at him in amazement, 
shuffle his feet, shrug his shoulders, in a way all his own, 
and break out into an imbecile horse-laugh. 

At school he fared no better. " II se cotte" said the 
master, from the veTo cotter, to shut, which is used in our 
district. Ulysses, whose mind remained almost impervious 
to the letters of the alphabet, was more than ever shut % up 
when it came to syllables ; while between syllables and 
words yawned a quite impassable abyss. 

It was all the same with arithmetic. Ulysses knew, in- 
deed, that, in point of fact, one apple and two apples make 
three apples; that when the innkeeper's son took two, 
he had only one left • but this transaction translated into 
figures left him stunned and stupified. He would contem- 
plate with his unquiet eyes the white symbols on the black 
board, crush the chalk between his fingers, and then pass 



A POOR BOY. 101 

tliem over his face, till the whole school burst out laughing, 
and the master put him behind the door, and made him 
kneel there. 

His best Sundays were spent in the wood-hole. For as 
to the Catechism, as to those dry and exceedingly abstract 
answers that have to be gone through without a single 
stumble, Ulysses never got beyond the first half of the first 
sentence. It is but just, however, to state, that he repeated 
it five times, ten times, that he would have repeated it 
twenty or thirty irremissibly chained to the same place, if 
the master had not administered a back-hander that broke 
the spell. 

His father would say, "It will all come right by and by; 
he ; s not stupid, take my word for it." 

"What with the great ruler of the schoolmaster, a square 
ruler falling sometimes on the fingers, sometimes on the 
back ; and what with the cuffs, varied with kicks, bestowed 
on him by his father, Ulysses grew indeed, — but it did not 
come right. 

He remained where he was, borne,— knowing, parrot- 
fashion, the little he did know, not malignant, self-com- 
placent, trusting, turning up his twisted nose with the air 
of a youth who, if he would, could afford to make fun of 
all the rest of the world. 

A horrible suspicion now began to dawn upon his father's 
mind, that of his son being a simpleton. He resisted it, 
however, at first through pride, then through a species of 
instinctive affection little higher than that of the animals. 
He knew himself, knew that from the very moment when 
he lost all hopes of Ulysses, he should begin to hate him. 
This thought was painful ; he clung might and main to his 
illusion ; only he began to look more than ever askance at 
his wife. 



102 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 

The poor mother for her part would gladly have loved 
her son. Alas ! the proper spring was broken ; when he 
was beaten, she only suffered with a passive suffering which 
never led her to take his part, — that was all. While his 
father was still in doubt upon the subject, the stupidity of 
Ulysses was a settled point with his little playfellows. 
They made fun of him ; they turned him round their fingers, 
without, however, teasing him too much, because he gave 
in to all so good naturedly. The more they bantered him, 
the better he was pleased ; he believed everything with 
marvellous credulity ; always good-humoured ; laughing 
with those who laughed at him. As to ill-luck, he took 
it as it came, and good luck too. There was no thorough 
holiday without Ulysses. He was summoned and put at 
the head of the troop, supported by two sharp urchins, who 
23layed him fine tricks. He was overwhelmed with delight ; 
he thought himself the sharpest, the most dexterous of the 
whole party ; thought himself handsome, smart, — whatever 
they chose. There was nothing hostile about his vanity. 
It did not spring from self-love, but from unlimited trust, un- 
fathomable innocence, innate ingenuousness, proof against 
the most sobering experiences. Tricked yesterday, Ulysses 
bore no malice ; he was ready to be tricked again to-morrow. 

And what tricks the boys and girls used to play him in 
the court-yard of the old manor ! How they used to laugh 
at him ! Happy days, proud days for Ulysses. It was a 
sight to see him when he came in perched on those long 
stilts of his, making a leg, and returning an imbecile laugh 
to the hoots and roars that welcomed him. 

" Come here and try, Ulysses ; come and try; we want 



you 



Ulysses came forward. 

" You are the only one to do this well." 



A POOH BOY. 103 

They were playing at the pyramid. Ulysses was hoisted 
upon the shoulders of two vagabonds, — rocked, shaken by 
them, while they called out, "Take care ! stand steady !" 
till, after incredible efforts to maintain his equilibrium, he 
fell like a lump of lead, rubbed his knees and elbows, then 
looked at the rogues, who were in convulsions of laughter, 
and only said, " Ah, very well, if I had liked !" 

Or else a piece of money was thrown into a bucket of 
water : " Pick it up, Ulysses ; you are the one to do it ; 
we can't, any of us. Look, that 's the way, with the teeth 
— so — open your eyes, shut your nose and ears." 

Ulysses would plunge boldly, then, somewhat dashed by 
the cold water, he would jump about, sneezing, shaking his 
head, wetting all the curious standers-by, but quite ready 
to return to the charge a hundred times if they liked. 

Or else it was the race. He who never saw Ulysses 
run on those great dislocated legs of his, with neck out- 
stretched and paddling arms, may be said to have seen 
nothing ! 

Then they called out to him, " Ulysses, go and kiss the 
prettiest girl." Straightway Ulysses went ; a general flight, 
a very hail of scratches ! Ulysses was persevering ; he 
did not mind jeers, he was used to them ; he would have 
run on for three hours — feeling sure to succeed at last, ii 
some one had not stopped him. 

There was mischief enough among these village lads, but 
no malignity. Ulysses was not any one's friend, indeed, 
but no one would deliberately have hurt him. He got 
plenty of cuffs, it is true, and they risked his bones with- 
out much scruple ; but he himself did not take much care 
of them. Indeed, but for a certain obtuseness which 
rendered him half-witted, Ulysses had in him the making 
of a hero, — indifference to pain, perfect self-reliance, 



104 THE NEAR HORIZON'S. 

indefatigable perseverance; that simple resolution which 
marches straight forward through fire and water to its 



Poor Ulysses ! he was very happy on these fine Sundays, 
these gay days of childhood, in that fine court-yard ; always 
a prominent person, and even if not, leaping, playing away, 
animated by the same spirit as all the rest. 

Sometimes in July there would come from the mountain 
a burst of the wind we call " Joran," sweeping the ground, 
making the leaves waltz wildly, twisting the trees in the 
orchard, strewing the fields with green apples. What 
spoils, what plunder ! And while one gathered and 
munched, and exulted with flying hair in the violence of 
the storm — in anything out of the common way, the hurri- 
cane bent the immense branches of the planes, which 
shewed the white lining of their leaves as they flung 
themselves about; and the court resounded with wild 
clamours. 

In June again, when the cows were leaving for the 
mountain, there was a very different scene. 

One heard the cattle from a great distance ; heard them 
coming along the paths and roads all round the enclosure. 
The ringing of the toupins* with their solemn tones ; the 
silver bells, the loud yolees of the shepherd ; their prolonged 
cries spread through the air, drawing nearer and nearer 
still. The little boys rush to the entrance of the village, 
group themselves around the public-house, where the 
drovers halt to drink a drop or two, and get up their 

* A large bell of the shape of a reversed tulip. There are about ten 
of them for every herd of one hundred cows. They are hung to their 
necks, both in ascending and descending the mountain ; then taken 
off, and arranged along one of the beams of the " chalet." If some 
foolish practical joker sets them ringing, all the herd take their way 
again to the plain. 



A POOH BOY 105 

strength, for night is coming on, and it is no joke to climb 
the mountain at midnight with from sixty to a hundred 
cows at one's heels. 

While the drovers drink, the lads take charge of the herd : 
"Ulysses, the great whip is for you; you shall hold the bull." 

And Ulysses went to do so without the least fear. 

Here they come I here they come ! the handsomest cow 
first, with her large nosegay on her head, her bell round 
her neck, suspended to the leathern collar, with antique 
embroidery, and the escutcheon of the Canton : Liberie ! 
patrie/ She would die, the beautiful cow — this has 
happened before now — she would die if the drovers were 
to take away -her nosegay and her necklace to give them to 
any other ! Just look at her, how she advances, proud and 
stately, with heavy measured steps. 

Here are the drovers, grave, fine-looking fellows. They 
have left the valley, left their homes ; they pined for the 
mountains, the upper pastures, the long twilights, the wide 
view over the low country and the Alps ; they languished 
for the free life, the long distances, the cheeses, and things 
in general up there. 

There are the scanty household goods in a cart, a caldron 
in the middle. All the cattle follow, — white, black, red, 
brindled. As for the goats, they went first; they have 
been for some days on the mountain. 

The boys cluster round with knowing countenance, and, 
while the drovers refresh themselves at the tavern, they 
yole in their turn, tutor, worry the cattle, till one or the 
other of the cowherds standing at the door, roars out — 
" Will you leave them alone, then 1 Do you want me down 
upon you*?" Ulysses did not escape a few pushes and 
pokes, but that was nothing ; he returned proud and happy, 
turning up his nose with a victorious air. 



106 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 

His father, seeing him in this mood, took courage again. 

And then autumn ! true season of junketing ! no school I 
fruit everywhere ! 

There are in September golden days such as no other 
month brings. The sun is pale ; heavy morning dews have 
made the grass green again ; it is newly mown. There are 
hardly any flowers left, except the pale crocus, but you 
can walk freely through the fields in every direction. No 
standing crops, no hemp, hay, or lucerne ; the eye glides 
over the green expanse, can take in all the country. The 
air is subtle ; amber rays shine through the boughs ; the 
foliage, not yet tinged with red, has something more deli- 
cate about it ; less density ; one would say that all nature 
was idealised. A few gnats, born yesterday, to die to- 
morrow, are executing in the ethereal atmosphere a dance, 
the undulations of which are full of mystery. At the foot 
of the apple and the pear-trees are heaps of red and white 
apples, and pears of golden hue. 

Then it was that Ulysses feasted. His father had neither 
fields nor orchard ; but his companions were there ; they 
reached him apples, — a little worm-eaten, perhaps, but he 
did not look too closely. 

Then came October. The cows descended in the order 
they had gone up. The warm nights during which they 
had climbed the mountain, when the moon shone bright, 
when the cytisus, together with roses and tulips, blossomed 
on their horned heads ; when one heard, winding at various 
distances through the gloom, the sound of bells, toupins, 
and yolees, — these are past. Of late, especially these last 
few days, the cows have been cold up there, and summer 
being over, have had but scanty fare ; and now they spread 
over the fields, twisting off great mouthfuls of grass, and 
sniffing with their cool muzzles at all tempting plants ; and 



A POOR BOY, 107 

as they move along from one to the other, rubbing against 
the old trees, and pensively standing still to look over the 
hedge, then returning to graze with steady step, the little 
bells sound and re-sound. The great toupins have been 
taken off, they are hung up till next season. From one 
horizon to the other, the country echoes with this rustic 
music ; the valley answers the hill ; in the best concealed 
nooks between the rocks, at the edge of the wood, this 
ringing is heard, giving birth to wild fragments of melody, 
all their discords dying away in the misty air; drowned in 
a great universal harmony. 

It is then that boebes * are in request. Each of them 
for a five-franc piece, and the addition of a pair of shoes, 
if the master is generous, may take the cattle to feed 
during the short season of autumn. One constantly meets 
in all the roads around, a cow, two or three cows, a few 
sheep behind them, and behind the sheep, a lad, fair-haired, 
chubby, bare-headed, with a brother or sister, younger 
than himself, running after him. 

In the fields, a fire is made ; a beautiful bright fire which 
crackles, smokes, and flames. Some underground hiding- 
place is made into which to stuff the yellow carrots left in 
the field, till they can be carried off on the morrow. On 
the very tip-top of a tree, on its highest branch, a pear is 
descried, juicy, melting, one can see that from here. 

" Ulysses ! Ulysses ! this is the very thing for you. Up 
you go, my boy ! " Ulysses never in his life tried to climb 
anything whatsoever without falling flat, more or less 
bruised ; but never mind, he will go all the same. " Are 
you afraid % " 

Ulysses shrugs his shoulders, makes a spring ; they sup- 
port him, squeeze him against the tree, lift him, push, pro- 
* A little boy, from the German Bube. 



108 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 

pel : " Courage, my fine fellow ; there you are ! " Then 
they let him, go ; he is on his back on the ground, his 
great arms and great legs telegraphing like those of a field- 
spider. The rest are rolling in the grass in fits of laughter. 

But for all this, these were Ulysses' good days. He too, 
like others, had a joyous childhood, thickly sown with 
pleasant memories. For him, as for the rest, there had 
been sunshine, apples, merry Sundays, a few more hard 
knocks, and all the rest. As for ridicule, he did not see 
his own infirmity, he did not feel it ; as for his father's 
brutalities, he had never known him different ; as for the 
suffering apathy of his mother, he was not aware of it. As 
he grew up, as she got weaker, he did what he could for 
her ; he carried water, split wood. She used to say to 
him, " You are a pretty fellow, you are." He believed her : 
this went on for some years. 

"With his fifteenth year there came an increase of awk- 
wardness ; his whole life took a new turn. His ugliness 
grew with his growth. Ulysses became preternaturally 
tall, clumsy, and backward. 

His companions, having grown older, were naughtier 
than they were, and dragged him into worse scrapes. The 
schoolmaster had given him up long ago. His mother 
got thinner and a greater nonentity day by day. His 
father was more irritable, more hard, a savage expression 
sometimes passed over his face ; never a word of affection, 
never even one of indifference ; he was either silent or 
storming. The mother had not sufficiently the habit of 
taking the initiative to dream of consoling her son ; if she 
had so dreamed, she lacked the energy to carry it out, but 
the very idea never occurred to her. 

The father in his workshop, the mother in the kitchen, 
the son driven from pillar to post by great volleys of 



A POOR BOY. 109 

oaths — bullied for what lie did, because he did it ill ; 
bullied for what he did not do, because he left it undone, 
— such was their domestic life. 

Generally, Ulysses crouched at the corner of the hearth, 
near his mother, his knees pushed up above his ears, his 
hands groping for some brand among the cinders. 

At last the father understood clearly that he had for his 
son a half-witted creature, below the average standard, 
below the inferior ; a son who knew nothing, who would 
know nothing, who was good for nothing; a lad that 
others laughed at, and had a right to laugh at ; a booby, 
the standing joke of the village, — his son, his ! 

All this was abrupt, clear, decisive. The thing once 
proved, the blow once fallen, with a change of feeling 
inexorable as a fact, the father began to detest his son. 
There was neither remorse nor reaction. As he was the 
master, he tyrannised over him. Henceforth, the only 
portion of Ulysses was work beyond his strength, poor 
and scanty food, and rude blows from a heavy hand upon 
every occasion. All this without premeditation, quite 
naturally and spontaneously. 

Ill received, ill treated, rebuffed by all, except such com- 
rades as made him subservient to their sports, Ulysses lost 
much of his innocent confidence. But if they took pains 
about it, the village lads were still able to waken in him 
some sparks of his former love of adventure. Then there 
were exploits that served for the diversion of long winter 
evenings. 

Sometimes they would take him to the public-house, make 
him tipsy, then egg him on to attack some good boxer, 
who left him half-dead ; sometimes they persuaded him to 
go by night and sing under the window of the richest girl 
in the place ; the father of the lady, who was not to be 



110 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 

trifled with, would throw a log at him, the brothers would 
sally forth — Ulysses came back with his head laid open. 
At other times they would get him into some scrapes with 
the messeliers * and the municipals ; and, when the mine 
was sprung, would make their escape, leaving him in their 
hands. The official wrath fell heavy on his luckless head, 
fine after fine was imposed, the shoemaker wielded his ter- 
rible cudgel, the frightened lad would go and hide behind 
the faggots in the shed, and^ it was much if his mother 
dared to keep back a little cold soup for him. 

Then, suddenly as the truth had broken on his father's 
mind, there dawned a ray of light on that of the son. A 
vague consciousness of inferiority came over him, nothing 
very positive, indeed, but a species of self-dissatisfaction, a 
kind of apprehension of others. A confused sense of his 
own ugliness awoke, then grew, till the moment when he 
fully comprehended to what a degree he was misshapen, 
grotesque, ugly, with an inexorable, absurd, crushing, hope- 
less ugliness. 

That was the first step, others soon followed. He saw 
himself awkward, stupid, more stupid even than he was. 
It seemed that sorrow developed his mind, that a soul was 
given him to suffer with. He saw himself repulsive, des- 
picable ; all his life passed before him like a bad farce, of 
which he had been the clown. 

He did not lose himself in analysis ; but the tide of sad- 
ness went on rising, and submerged him. 

He became gloomy, unsociable ; he would glide along 
the houses, escape from his former companions ; and, his 
task done, climb to his garret, throw himself on his pallet, 
swallowed up in the contemplation of his misery. 

No more smiles, no more confidence ; an immeasurable 
* Rural police. 



A POOR BOY. Ill 

wretchedness paralysed him. He had no anger, no hatred 
against any one, only he deeply abhorred himself. 

It is a great misfortune to. discern that one is imprisoned 
in ugliness and stupidity ; to feel that one is an object of 
disgust to others, and that they are right. It is a suffer- 
ing akin to egotism, and often leading to it. Despised by 
others, one takes to idolising self; in default of noble 
emotions, one falls back on gross pleasures. 

It was not so, however, with Ulysses. 

When he had once fully understood that he was an utter 
failure, that no one loved him, that all ridiculed him, that 
there was no help for it; when he had ascertained his 
limitations on every side, supremely disgusted with himself, 
he began to droop, as his mother had done, but with fuller 
consciousness of what he was and how he suffered. His 
sun had set with his illusions. A cold autumn fog had 
risen ; he was, as it were, frozen up. 

Formerly, after the paternal storms, he would shake 
himself, run off to the village, come in for fresh blows 
there, and return amused. Now, there was no more elas- 
ticity, no incidents ; everything had foundered. His soli- 
tary days succeeded each other all equally unhappy. He 
did not give himself up to despair indeed; that would 
have implied some energy, but atrophy set in, and he 
rapidly declined. 

His father was only irritated by his growing uselessness. 
"Weakened as he was, Ulysses became still more awkward. 
The axe and the hoe, put into his hands by his father, were 
sure to slip out of his weak grasp. The shoemaker's bursts 
of rage, which used to glide harmlessly over his son's inert 
organism, his abusive language and rough treatment, now 
told indelibly on mind and body alike. He did not ask 
affection from any one ; he felt no claim upon any kind- 



112 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 

ness whatsoever ; it never entered his head to bespeak his 
father's compassion ; but he was dying from a dearth of all 
these. 

Sometimes, when the anguish was too great, when he 
could not make head against it, he would look at his 
mother. It seemed as though help ought to come from 
her ; not that he had courage enough to speak openly to 
her ; not even to give her a caress, — that silent language 
of those whose lips are closed ; but still a secret instinct 
told him to look for comfort there. 

His mother, on her part, looked at him with surprise. 
She plainly saw that there was something wrong; that 
Ulysses got silent ; that sometimes tears gathered in his 
eyes ; that he was very pale, and could hardly walk ; that 
his father's rages terrified him, him who used to mind them 
so little ; but she could analyse nothing : she would glancp 
at her husband, shrink into herself, retreat instinctively, 
and murmur, "Must have patience, my lad; must have 
patience." 

The disease increased. His father's brutalities, insuffi- 
cient food, heart-sorrow, soon undermined the poor body 
which had never had any overplus of vitality. At night, 
fever consumed him ; in the morning, he was cold as death : 
there was never a drop of wine to revive him. Neither 
mother nor son could have had courage to reach a hand at 
meals towards the shoemaker's bottle. Extensive sores, 
that livery of extreme destitution, came to finish what 
atrophy had begun. He had to give up all work. His 
father said nothing ; he saw that his son was ill, and got 
so much the harder. 

Ulysses, idle through necessity, hardly dared to creep 
down twice a day from his garret, and take his place at 
meals. After getting a little unstiffened in the darkest 



A POOR BOY. 113 

corner near the hearth, he would drag himself up again. 
He passed whole hours motionless, without amusement, 
without consolation; repelled from the past by bitter 
memories, from the future by vague terrors; weak, lan- 
guid, without a murmur or a complaint ; gazing, lost in an 
undefinable reverie, at the dull daylight which shone 
through his dirty window, or at the bare walls of his 
wretched attic. No one in the village perceived that 
Ulysses was failing. He had gradually separated himself 
from all the young people ; they got into the habit of 
leaving him alone; then, when he was no more seen about, 
he was forgotten. 

He had done as the wild beasts do, — he had gone apart 
to die. His mother watched with a stupid eye the pro- 
gress of his disease. One day, when his father was out 
working, she went up to Ulysses, and asked him in a 
whisper what ailed him. 

" I suffer," he replied, in a listless voice. 

She grew uneasy, drew nearer; her son's emaciation 
frightened her. She pushed his coarse shirt aside, saw his 
chest, saw the ravages the sores had made, gave a kind of 
suppressed moan; then went down, brought up some rags 
and some vinegar, and proceeded to dress them. Every 
day she secretly did this, choosing the time when his 
father was at the public-house. Her hands were clumsy, 
her treatment was wretched enough ; but what good it did 
Ulysses ! how he used to listen for her furtive step upon 
the wooden stair ! 

About the same time the pastor and the family at the 
manor chanced to inquire where Ulysses was, and why he 
was never to be met with about. As soon as he was known 
to be ill, he was visited ; not with much hope, however, of 
giving him any pleasure, of getting anything out of him, 

H 



114 THE NEAR HORIZON'S. 

or conveying anything to him, — his was such a dense 
nature ! Still he was ill, he must be attended to ; he had 
a soul, it might need consolation. His neglected condition, 
his disease appalled his visitors. All manner of help 
arrived. Ulysses used to thank, but he was stupified and 
reserved. There was no getting at him ; he was conscious 
of the compassion felt, but that did not reconcile him to 
his own repulsive individuality. On the contrary, uncon- 
sciously it only depressed him the more. Then he was 
spoken to of God, of the Saviour. Ulysses listened very 
seriously with a pensive air, as if amazed at these new 
tidings; but he said nothing. Only, when those who 
spoke thus to him knocked at his garret, he used to rise 
with a spring beyond his strength, and to open the door 
for them. 

This went on some time. Then, a little from weariness 
of talking, as it were, to the air, a little from a sense of 
human helplessness, recourse was had to God's own Book. 
Without well knowing what he could make out of it, they 
tried to read him some chapters in the Gospels, some Psalms, 
the history of the patriarchs ; above all, the life of the Lord 
Jesus. They did not comment much ; just two or three 
short, simple words ; more would have been thrown away. 
Insensibly the expression of Ulysses lit up; his eyes 
brightened, his countenance awoke; I know not what 
intimate content, — not the stupid satisfaction of yore ; no, 
but something humble, reticent, noble, ay, noble, — was 
shed over his pale face. Once or twice, in a quiet voice 
neither bold nor timid, he put some questions which 
amazed his visitors. 

This went on progressing like the dawning light of day ; 
with steady, royal step, — as God works when He does work. 
K"o clouds rose ; this sun never stood still. No doubt, no 



A POOP BOY. 115 

fear, very little difficulty. The gospel in its fulness pene- 
trated at once with all its beauty, its power, its tenderness, 
into this heart, disinherited heretofore of happiness. This 
heart grew radiant. 

Jesus had met this fainting spirit in the desert ; He had 
raised this poor child from the earth, and taken him into 
His arms. Jesus was the first who ever loved him. Ac- 
cordingly, how well Ulysses distinguished His voice from 
all others ! It entered his inmost soul, and he followed 
Jesus. To dispute, to doubt ? Ulysses could no more do 
so than could Moses, when, standing on the holy mountain, 
God made His goodness to pass before him. 

Ulysses had listened, believed with all his might, with his 
whole being. He loved unboundedly that Jesus who had 
called him by his name, — by his much-ridiculed name, — 
and had said to him, "My son, give me thy heart." 
There was about his faith a certain spring-tide innocence. 
One saw revive and blossom, but blossom as they do under 
the Lord's touch only, those natural gifts of trust and sim- 
plicity which formerly cast an unsteady light over his in- 
complete nature. 

Jesus was not for him that abstraction, that great prophet, 
that God dying for us on the horizon of remotest ages, 
inhabiting eternity; nor was He that philosopher, that 
legislator which many of our wisest only know Him as, 
unconscious that they do not know Him at all. 

Jesus was his Creator, Jesus was his Saviour. He died 
yesterday upon the cross in horrible suffering for him — him, 
a scoundrel, as he would cry out in his strong emotion. 

And this Jesus, victorious, sympathising, his friend, 
would come and spend long hours at his side in his garret. 
He hardly dared to say anything, or said very little to 
other men, but to Jesus ! The others were compassionate, 



1 1 6 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 

were kind, worthy people ; Ulysses was not worth the pains 
they took about him ; but Jesus ! Jesus who had hungered, 
who had been cold ; Jesus whom they insulted throughout 
one dark night about Easter time ; Jesus who touched the 
leper with His own hand ; Jesus was his brother at the 
same time that He was his God ; he was quite at home 
with Him. 

Ulysses had never complained much; now he did not 
complain at all. One could hardly get him to say a word 
about his sufferings. He had received the Bible promises 
with the trust of a child who hears his father speak. He 
realised them all. To hope, to enter the paradise of light, 
to see his God, quench his thirst, possess inexpressible bliss 
from eternity to eternity, this was all one and the same thing 
to him, — simple, and easy, and, as it were, already done. 

As long as he could hold up, he would drag about his 
garret, peaceful and pensive, his glance fixed elsewhere. 
" I am soon going," he would say, and then he would sit 
upon his poor pallet, while so much joy lit up his face, the 
few words he spoke vibrated so strongly, he possessed his 
Saviour in such royal guise, that one felt overcome in the 
presence of this poor, weak creature ; overcome and hum- 
bled, adoring God because His hand was there. 

Ulysses was in great haste to go, but he was not impa- 
tient : " When He sees it fit, He will come," he was wont 
to say ; or else in village parlance, " He is certain sure to 
come." 

His father never saw him now ; Ulysses could not go 
down-stairs, his father did not come up. Some people, 
those who had courage enough, would turn in to the shoe- 
maker in leaving the garret. " Your son is very ilL" No 
answer. " He is very patient !" Nothing. " If you were 
to " A cold, dry look cut the speaker short. 



A POOB BOY. 117 

The poor mother had taken to loving her son with all 
the little strength she had left. She did not well under- 
stand what had taken place in him ; but she felt a craving 
to see and to hear him. When he spoke of God, she 
listened with a great effort to understand ; when he prayed, 
she knelt down beside him. She crept quietly into the 
illuminated hemisphere where her son abode. She received 
a transmitted joy; a second-hand happiness; reflected, 
indeed, like the light of the moon, but yet coming to her 
from God. She found that it was good to be there ; she 
felt herself more at ease ; she would have liked things to 
have gone on always thus. But the poor lad had suffered 
enough. 

One night he cheerfully embraced his mother, and said 
— " Mother, you want us to be together with the Lord ; 
you must believe Him." 

" Yes," answered she, looking much impressed. 

" Tell the father to come up." 

" The father ! " she repeated in horror. 

" Go and call him, mother." 

Ulysses had never spoken so before. She went away 
trembling ; clung to the bannister in going down-stairs ; 
opened the door of the kitchen, then that of the next room, 
and remained on the threshold. She stood there some 
moments, not daring to stir. The shoemaker turned 
round. 

" What 's the row now 1 " he thundered out. 

" The boy— Ulysses " 

"What about him?" 

" He is asking for you, father." 

An almost imperceptible shudder shook the father's 
hand. 

<: I have no time." 



118 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 

His wife, scared, turned away. Wnile she was closing 
the door, 

" To-morrow," he added, in a rough voice. 

The mother went up again quite pleased. 

"Well, mother?" 

" He has said To-morrow." 

" To-morrow ! " repeated the young man, with a singular 
smile. 

They were a long time together after that. Ulysses 
spoke more to his mother about the Lord Jesus than he 
had yet done ; then, when it got late, said, " You must go 
down now, mother ; father will scold." 

His mother had not a quick intuition, but something 
weighed upon her heart ; she would have wished to remain ; 
but her husband was beginning to walk up and down in 
the room below. 

"Go, mother," said Ulysses in the same grave tone. 
He turned to the wall ; she looked long at him, left the 
room, listened to his breathing, she did not know why, 
then went down-stairs. 

That night the angels of God came for Lazarus. He 
went away noiselessly, humbly. In what a rapture of bliss, 
Eternity will tell us. 

In the morning, his mother went up anxiously to his 
attic. She was surprised to see him lie so still ; she was 
surprised at the great stillness ; herself, she could not 
speak. She touched him with her finger; then, with a 
shriek and beside herself, she rushed down-stairs into her 
husband's room, and standing erect before him for the first 
time in her life, with uplifted voice, and a gesture of deso- 
lation almost appalling — " He is dead ! " she cried. 

The shoemaker grew pale, then coughed, then looked at 
her with his dull, vacillating, merciless eye ; looked at her 



A POOR BOY. 119 

till she bent again; till she shrunk within herself; till, 
with drooping head, and unsteady steps, drawing further 
and further back, she returned to the kitchen, to the corner 
of the hearth, to crouch there as she did yesterday, as she 
did a year ago, as she will to-morrow, as she will ten years 
to come, as she will so long as she lives. 




THE GALLEY-SLAYE. 

DO not know why this particular figure should 
haunt me so, but it is one which constantly 
recurs. I will sketch it here, with a few rapid 
touches. 

I only saw the man twice. 

The first time was at the house of a young invalid girl. 
She lived with an old lady who filled, I think, the post of 
inspector at the Halle aux Bles* The two women, who 
were in no way related, but had a strong bond of union, 
in their mutual poverty, occupied a very humble apartment, 
in the vicinity of the Halle. Their rooms were on the 
fourth floor of a very small and crowded house. The elder 
of the two had to be at her post from an early hour of the 
morning. Euphemia, the younger — Phemie, as she called 
herself — always stayed at home. From the first day of 
her taking up her abode there, she had never gone down 
the stair. She was not able to do so ; her limbs, paralysed 
in consequence of a long and dreadful illness, refused to 
support her. Her frame was worn, almost distorted by 
suffering, but her face was still young and fresh. One 
hardly noticed its insignificant features ; the expression 
was alL It was gentle, intelligent, refined, and she had a 
gracefulness of diction, a charming voice, a glance so inno- 
cent, and yet so bright, — a tout ensemble, in short, which 
made the hours fly while one listened to her talk. 

She spent her long days alone. By way of solace, she 
* The corn market. 



THE GALLEY-SLAVE. 121 

had always some embroidery on hand, which she executed 
rapidly and well ; and for company, she had two canaries, 
who sung cheerily in their cage behind a trellis overgrown 
with nasturtiums, very green in July, very bare in late 
autumn, when Phemie would take the cage in and garnish 
it well with chickweed. 

Her wants were few ; in the morning she had breakfast 
with her companion, and took nothing till evening, except 
a glass of cold water, which she went to the kitchen to get, 
dragging herself thither with some difficulty on her crutches. 
That used to occupy a full quarter of an hour, and was as 
good as a walk, she used to say. 

The room she occupied was light, pretty, exquisitely 
neat and clean, with its bits of old china and old glass on 
the chest of drawers ; its white curtains, its little tokens 
of an elegant poverty, revealing spirits stronger than the 
pressure of circumstance. 

Euphemia loved God. She would have liked to work 
actively for Him. He only permitted her to suffer and to 
pray ; she took life accordingly, as He gave it her. Only, 
whenever a corn-porter came up to the little room on busi- 
ness, Phemie very courageously, with that delicate tact that 
she had, that simplicity enlightened by natural intelligence, 
entered at once upon serious subjects, and would hardly 
let him leave without speaking a few good words to him. 

Many listened to her silently, not caring to prolong the 
conversation ; while others spoke freely, nay, would even 
discuss the subject with her; but no one felt himself 
jarred, — no one laughed, and some of them returned. 

I happened to know Euphemia. That day, when I went 
up to her room, I did not find her alone. She was sitting 
near the window, its light being softened by the nastur- 
tiums in full flower. She was embroidering in her quiet 



122 TEE NEAR HORIZONS. 

way, with, a cheerful look on her face. She greeted me 
with a bend of the head and a smile, with that modest 
ease free from familiarity as from awkwardness, which 
certain natures bring with them at their birth, under the 
thatclied roof as well as under the gilded. 

This is not a thing to be acquired : one has it or has it 
not. If one has it not, one never will have it. Now, 
Euphemia had it ; she was a poor girl and a perfect lady, 
but her manners accorded admirably with her slender 
means. Everything was in excellent keeping; she was 
the right person in the right place. 

There are some people whose every look and word raise 
legions of incongruities, which attend the whole course of 
their life. Euphemia, on the contrary, was one of those 
harmoniously gifted spirits, on whom peace ever waits, — 
peace, propriety, ease, and fitness. The little that she did 
was well, because spontaneously, done. She was graceful 
in appearance and manner; never embarrassed, because 
simple and self-forgetful. Infirm as she was, she had a 
thousand little methods of being independent of help ; all 
so unobtrusive, one hardly noticed them, — they seemed in 
the natural course of things. 

That morning we were talking of this, that, and the 
other, when a slight sound made me turn my head. Then 
I saw, at the other end of the room, a tall figure, which 
surprised me a good deal. I looked at Phemie ; she was 
calm as usual. The man, very tall, as I have said, was 
seated on a bench. I could not distinguish his features ; 
my eyes were dazzled with the light ; and, besides, he was 
sitting in a dark part of the room ; but he was in a sort of 
Dantesque position, which struck me, with his knees raised, 
Ms elbows on his knees, his face resting upon his clenched 
fists, and a fixed look which one rather felt than saw. He 



THE GALLEY-SLAVE. 123 

did not speak, did not stir ; lie was absorbed, either listen- 
ing or dreaming, one knew not which. 

Euphemia did not seem to be noticing him. I did a3 
she did, or, at all events, I tried ; but in my own despite, 
that man's presence, which she hardly seemed aware of, 
disquieted me. I kept thinking of him, and casting from 
time to time a furtive glance in his direction. There he 
still was, always in exactly the same position. I felt ill at 
ease ; my voice shook a little, Euphemia's not at all. She 
went on embroidering, relating some incident or other of 
her own short past history. 

" Must needs tell you ! " she cried, with an animated 
gesture. She had that easy diction of the Parisians, — 
those familiar elisions which give language wings. 

" Must tell you what happened to me one Sunday when 
I had legs of my own. I was agile then, a good walker. 
We lived at Auteuil, — not rich, you know. When we had 
to go to Paris, we walked. That Sunday, then, a fine 
summer Sunday, the nightingales were singing, I had been 
working till midnight. Never mind, I wanted to go to 
church to hear something about God. I look at the sun, 
— nine o'clock ; I am late. I dress, make all the haste I 
can, run rather than walk. I get there ! They are sing- 
ing the hymn ; I seat myself on the first empty corner I 
find, close to the door, and — only think ! The singing, the 
cool air, the shady corner, fatigue, all together, — I fall 
asleep, fast asleep, and sleep as I had not done for a whole 
week before ! 

" That was wrong, that was," resumed Euphemia, shak- 
ing her head when she saw me smile. 

" I slept half an hour, I slept an hour, I slept two hours, 
— the whole time the service lasted. I was wakened by a 
great noise ; I saw every one standing up ; they were just 



124 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 

about to leave. I jumped up too, confused, blushing for 
shame, ready to cry, — I was so vexed ! 

" Then there was a pause ; and then came the minister's 
voice, gravely pronouncing the final blessing : 'Go in peace! 
and the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and 
the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you and your 
families /' 

"There was my sermon, and a beautiful one it was! 
And so I felt my heart leap with joy, and went back with 
these words, which lasted me the whole week through. 
Dear me ! the compassion the epod Lord has for His poor 
children 1" 

A deep sigh, almost like a hiss, interrupted Euphemia. 
I started, and turned abruptly towards the bench. The 
man had not stirred, only more of his face was hidden by 
his hands. 

Euphemia looked at him with her mild glance. 

<; One must have trust, Monsieur Victor," she said. 

There was a short pause ; then she began to talk again, 
just as her canaries sang, with an outburst of youth and 
happiness ; a freedom from any anxious thought for the 
morrow, of which we lose the sweet secret after our twen- 
tieth summer. 

While she was speaking, the man, without saying a word, 
rose and left the room. 

Euphemia's countenance changed at once, and she grew 
very grave. 

" He is one of our porters," she said. Then seeing that 
this short explanation did not satisfy me, that my glance 
was still a questioning one, she went on with some little 
constraint. 

u He is very unhappy." Then in a low voice, as if what 



TEE GALLEY-SLAVE. 125 

she was going to say rather distressed her on his account, 
" He has been at the galleys !" 

I shuddered involuntarily. 

" If you knew all he suffers ! Ill ; no peace ; a wild 
beast's nature ; fits of fury which rise like flames, — less 
now than formerly, though ! Then the strength of a bull ; 
iron hands ! Ill as he is, he can still bend a sovereign with 
his fingers ! He was young, he was jealous ; there was a 
woman that he loved. In one of his mad rages he bit her 
breast so ferociously, that she died of it. He was ten years 
down there; now he is weary of life. He does not want 
for work ; he is steady, but he is consumed with remorse 
and shame ; — he is afraid of God. Yet he comes here ; 
I speak a little to him ; he never answers, or hardly, — he 
is so timid ! but he always comes back." 

That was my first meeting with this man. 

My second was at his own house. 

His illness had rapidly increased; he could no longer 
work. Euphemia sent to tell me so. 

He lived not far from the Halle, in a very mean-looking 
dwelling. I went up ; I knocked. A hoarse voice bid me 
enter ; the voice was his mother's ! 

The room was large, high, but squalid ; with bare walls, 
their plaster very much stained, dripping with damp, and 
falling off here and there. No furniture, no chest of 
drawers, no wardrobe ; only three nearly bottomless chairs, 
on one of which sat the mother, sewing a canvas sack, near 
the window ; on the other lay the clothes of the sick man 
in the bed; the third was unoccupied, and placed beside 
him : it was there that I seated myself. 

The window, very large, filled with little greenish panes 
of glass, darkened by the exhalations from within and the 



126 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 

cold without, admitted an opaque light, — no blue sky; 
very sad to see. A bit of looking-glass, covered with 
black spots, was fixed to the wall. The mother, a large, 
bony-faced woman, went on with her sewing without look- 
ing towards me. She did not utter a word, did not make 
any gesture ; but I felt that she was hostile to me. She 
reminded me of a she-wolf surprised in her lair. 

Her son was lying on his pallet. It was then I saw his 
face, that face that I cannot forget. It was a long face, 
with hair cut very short ; a high forehead, cheeks closely 
shaven; a straight nose, thin lips, — the upper lip very 
long; an uncertain glance, with something about it emi- 
nently hard, and at the same time scared; savage and 
irresolute ; energetic, nay, passionate, and yet almost 
gentle. 

But what pervaded and prevailed over all was the im- 
press of an intense woe; a mixture of defiance and despair; 
a barren suffering; sorrow without tenderness; that sin- 
ister impress which seems to belong to the brow of fallen 
angels. He looked straight before him, neither at his 
mother nor me, nor the wall, nor the dust-laden atmo- 
sphere, nor at anything in sight. His feverish hands, still 
strong despite disease, kept throwing off the bed-clothes 
with a monotonous gesture. He was gasping for breath. 
His mother drew her needle in and out, (one heard the 
coarse thread pass through the canvas,) and turned her 
back to us. 

A woman like that might indeed love, — did love, no 
doubt ; but with a savage kind of undemonstrative love, 
— the love of a lioness, which crushed, not comforted. 

He was going down alone, — going down gloomy and 
despairing, into the abyss. To annihilation 1 to judgment ? 
He did not know. 



THE GALLEY-SLAVE. 127 

I felt a boundless pity. Strange to say, I felt a sense of 
humiliation sink into the very depths of my being. This 
man had almost murdered; even in dying he inspired 
terror ; yet, if I had dared, I could have taken him into 
my arms, and poured out all my heart towards him. 

I did so to God. As to what I said, I really do not 
know. My heart spoke, my tears flowed ; I implored him 
to let himself be saved. 

He went on, looking fixedly away in silence. At last 
his lips quivered a little, a slight flush passed over his face, 
and when I rose, he reached out his hand to me. 

"For the love of Jesus, believe!" It was a cry of 
anguish. Following an irresistible impulse, I fell on my 
knees : I prayed ! Did he pray too 1 I believe he did. 

The mother said nothing, but she had left off working ; 
and when at a later hour, when it had grown dark, I left 
her son asleep, and passed her on .my way out of the room, 
she rose, still sullen, but less hostile, and opened the door 
for me. 

I never saw the galley-slave again. 




THE DOVECOT. 

T is not what you think. I have no other dovecot 
to tell of than a poor room ; no other doves than 
an old man and his wife. 

I was reading in my drawing-room, in Paris, one snowy 
evening in the month of March, when the door opened, 
and a letter was handed in to me. Before I took it I 
knew what it was — a begging letter ! They are all alike ; 
the same paper, the same handwriting, the same smell of 
poverty, if it is not that of tobacco or of brandy ! 

Are we, then, indeed, such slaves of circumstance, that 
indigence effaces our individual characteristics 1 You have 
been rich, you have been fastidious, you have had your 
humours, your tastes, your originalities ; you become poor, 
they all get faded, flattened ; and if ever you are compelled 
to implore the charity of others, you too will dip your pen 
in the same pale ink. Your thoughts will follow this beaten 
track, you will fold your missive into the same humble 
shape ; poor, you too will write a poor man's letter. 

The letter I held in my hand smelt neither of wine nor 
of cigars. But my heart seemed withered ; weary of the 
woes of others, — I had seen so much of them all the winter 
through ; and much imposition, many tricks played upon 
me, gave me a right, so I thought at least, to take refuge 
now in selfish repose. 

For a moment I had an impulse to leave the letter un- 
opened, to send it back still sealed, to turn round and go 



THE DOVECOT. 129 

to sleep again. I did not do so, however : perhaps because 
I was ashamed of myself, perhaps because the servant, who 
was standing by the door waiting my answer, mumbled 
something that sounded like "They are there" 

I signified to him that I wished to be alone ; then tore 
open the envelope and read. 

The envelope contained two letters. One, the begging 
letter itself, neatly written, like many others I had received, 
with certain words, God, your charity, despair, &c, in 
capital letters, with many flourishes, denoting a decided 
talent for caligraphy. There was nothing else to distinguish 
it from the rest of its class. It described extreme destitu- 
tion j seemed, indeed, to have an impress of sincerity, some 
words that sounded like the soul's genuine cry ; expressions 
of faith which denoted a Christian spirit ; but I had seen 
so much of this carefully calculated simplicity, my ears 
were so weary of all this cold fervour, that positively I 
could no longer distinguish the ring of the true metal from 
that of the false. 

And this is one of the trials of our vocation, we who 
seek to do a little good in the world. 

The other letter was of quite a different stamp. It was 
a letter of recommendation, written in an off-hand style, by 
a wealthy inhabitant of Lyons, whom I knew, and who 
introduced an unfortunate pair to my notice — upholsterers, 
once well off, people of long-standing character, who had 
been ruined by a bad investment. Their misfortunes had 
brought them into contact with him, and, while assisting 
them in other ways as much as he could, he had imparted 
to them his own best wealth — Christian faith, in all its 
simplicity and power. This poor pair believed the Bible, 
they loved each other, but they felt it intolerable to 
live upon charity. There was no opening for them at 



130 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 

Lyons ; a vision of Paris had risen before their imagina- 
tion j from that moment there was no keeping them back. 
The wife would, indeed, have remained quiet, she retained 
fewer illusions ; not so the husband. Paris, so especially 
the town of beautiful furniture, rich hangings ! and then 
he, whose taste was so correct, whose hand so skilful ! 
Why, had he not, some twenty years ago, furnished, from 
cellar to roof, the archiepiscopal palace of the second town 
in France % Paris ! why, he should have nothing to do 
but to show himself there ; workshops would open at once, 
work would abound. The only drawback would be that 
he should have to engage twenty workmen .at least ; he 
was sorry for that, his wife might find them troublesome. 
Nothing could stop him, neither arguments nor facts ; they 
set off to Paris. This letter of recommendation to me was 
dated three months back. Three months ! of work or 
penury — who knew % 

I rushed to the door, opened it, and knew at once. 
There they both were, seated on a bench, dressed in old 
black garments, two pale, meagre figures, the very sight 
of them struck to one's heart with something of remorse. 
The husband was sixty years old, the wife fifty, but she 
looked more. She had a very sweet face, shaded by nearly 
gray hair, clear eyes, the only remnant of youth, a con- 
tented mouth, a resigned, thoroughly calm and good expres- 
sion, with all the courage of perfect openness. But gentle- 
ness and modesty were the prevailing characteristics. She 
drew a little back, with an air of suffering, slightly embar- 
rassed, but by no means awkwardly shy. 

The old upholsterer, her husband, resembled her in 
nothing. He was a little man, with keen, feverish eyes, 
agitated rather than active, getting up, sitting down, with 
a sort of distracted air, looking every moment at his wife, 



TEE DOVECOT. 131 

lovingly, but with an anxious love. His forehead was low, 
a bush of white hair, a narrow head, gave him an appear- 
ance of flightiness — and he was nighty, a very few moments 
shewed it plainly enough. 

Misfortune had assigned to each of them the same out- 
ward life ; but peace reigned in the woman's sweet nature, 
while the poor man was devoured by anxiety. She knew 
the Lord, and rested upon Him ; he knew Jesus too, and 
kept looking in every other possible direction for aid. 

She waited patiently ; he exhausted himself in barren 
efforts ; she let the past be past, he was constantly revert- 
ing to it with a bitterness that undermined his strength ; 
she loved tenderly, and this love was her best delight ; he 
loved passionately, and this love was his worst suffering. 

Such they were. For three whole months they had had 
disappointment after disappointment ; no work anywhere. 

" They say I am too old," cried the poor man. " They 
shut the door upon me ; not a chair to stuff, not a curtain 
to hang ! and I, who furnished Monseigneur's archiepisco- 
pal palace ! " and he shook his head. " Look at my arms, 
do you call those weak arms — those ?" He turned up his 
threadbare sleeve. " Have I not got my ten fingers still 1 
Beg ! beg ! beg ! — There is no help for it, we are without 
bread in the house ! * 

He sank down again upon the bench. His wife fixed her 
beautiful quiet eyes on me, a tear rising in them the while. 
She placed her hand upon her husband's. " God will not 
forsake us," she said, and these few simple words, spoken 
in a very grave and very gentle voice, made me involun- 
tarily think of that meek and quiet spirit which is in the 
sight of God of great price. 

The old upholsterer grew calm as if by magic. 

" It's very true, though," he said, "we are still happy." 



132 TEE NEAR HORIZONS. 

When they went away, the husband, contrary to custom, 
instinctively took his wife's arm, and leant upon it. It 
was evidently a habit of years of which she was not aware. 
Never had that humble heart, that innocent nature, sus- 
pected the weakness of her companion; never had she 
found out that she was superior to him in every respect — 
had the idea ever crossed her, she would have detested it, 
but it never did so. Hers was not that modest manner 
which covers a haughty mind, that submission in words 
and gestures, united to an inflexible will which will creep 
towards its goal, if it cannot walk thither upright. She 
never said, " It is my husband that wishes ! " Whatever 
he did wish, she was at once honestly ready to do. If the 
plan seemed to her a bad one, she said so openly and 
gently, for she had an opinion of her own, but she never 
insisted, she knew when to stop ; and the mischief once 
done, she would instinctively and unconsciously set about 
repairing it. She cherished her husband with all the 
strength of her soul, she respected, admired him. As for 
him, narrow-minded, but upright in heart, impetuous, 
ardently industrious, indefatigable, self-denying, he saw 
life, other people and himself, everything, indeed, but his 
wife, invariably on the dark side. 

People are soon lost sight of in Paris. Our worthy pair 
having been relieved, helped on as far as I could ; others 
came. After seeing a good deal of them, I saw them less ; 
two months passed, they never applied to me. I forgot 
them, then all at once they recurred to my mind, and I set 
off to look after them. 

The husband was the only one at home. 

One glance round the room told me how they had suf- 
fered. 

It had nothing left but what was quite indispensable ; 



THE DOVECOT. 133 

an iron stove on which their slender meal was cooking ; 
little white curtains to the window, none to the bed ; no 
old cracked cups, nor old gilded glasses, nor framed litho- 
graphs ; everything had found its way to the pawnbroker's. 

Only the cleanliness, the neatness, the pieces of old cloth 
laid down at the side of the bed, upon the cold brick floor, 
revealed a woman's presence. 

The upholsterer was seated ; he was writing, so intent, 
so absorbed, that at first he did not hear me. The neit 
moment he raised his eyes. He jumped up, made me sit 
down; took his head in his hands — it was his habitual 
gesture— then said, in an agitated voice — 

" Worse still ! worse and worse ! Not any work ! not 
any ! She is killing herself ! " 

He took up his wife's sewing, and let it fall again. 

" As for me, I am idle ; she feeds me, she does. I don't 
know which way to turn. Ask, ask, ask, always asking ! " 
This with a gesture of impatience not unmixed with bitter- 
ness ;— plainly the archiepiscopal hangings recurred to his 
mind : 

" And, by way of finishing stroke, I tease her ; yes, I 
tease her ! I ought to encourage her, I discourage ; I 
ought to strengthen her, I weaken ; I ought to let myself 
be consoled, I get irritable. She has faith, she has ; well 
I play the part of the devil I I try to deprive her of it. 
"When she says hope, I reply, What 's the use of hoping 1 
I am a wicked, useless man ; fit for nothing,— but to kill 
her !" 

He threw himself back in his chair, then went on : " At 
this moment, where do you suppose she is ? at the pawn- 
broker's. She has taken her watch there, the watch I gave 
her on our wedding-day, thirty years ago. Do you know 
what I went and did? I said no end of hard things to her, 



134 THE XEAR HORIZONS. 

that I did. She looked at me, she embraced me, and sat 
down again. I said to her, Go I like a brute that I was ; 
and she went." 

When he had recovered a little — 

"And so \" and at once his voice took almost a cheerful 
tone, " Look here." He took up the sheet of paper he had 
been writing on when I came in. " Look here ! I do my- 
self justice at least." And he pointed out the words with 
an intense satisfaction, " That will please her, will that." 

I read, " 21y dear wife, I am a wretch ; my dear wife, I 
am a wretch" and so on in text-hand, down to the bottom 
of the page. 

" If I know anything about her, I do not think that will 
please her," I simply replied. He looked at me with his 
small, eager eye. 

" Tell her you love her; that's better." 

" Love her, indeed !" cried the old upholsterer, in great 
excitement. " That woman ! that wife of mine, is an 
angel ! She is my life, is my wife. I am very unlucky ; 
we are cold here." His glance flitted round the poor bare 
room. " Sometimes we are hungry, but for all that there 
are moments, ay, there are hours when we are as happy as 
kings. At night, we go to bed when it gets dark. Candles 
come expensive ; there," and he pointed to the alcove, and 
the curtainless bed ; " there, when we kneel down together; 
there, when she rests her head on my shoulder ; there, look 
you, I am so happy sometimes I think my heart will burst. 
Oh, if I could only die so ! " 

"And your wife?" 

He uttered a cry, " There it is, there it is ; selfish, always 
selfish !" He clasped, or rather he wrung the hands he 
raised to heaven. 

I could have fancied I heard that groan from the heart 



THE DOVECOT. 135 

of St Paul ; that desolate sigh which rises out of the deep 
places of every human soul, " wretched man that I am ! 
who shall deliver me from the body of this death 1 " 

At that moment the door opened ; it was the wife re- 
turning. She saw at a glance the look of distress in her 
husband's face, and ran to him. 

" Forgive me," she said, " I have given you pain. We 
shall get it back ; you shall hang it round my neck again ! " 
She clasped him to her heart. " I have got bread, got all 
we want; let us trust in God, in Jesus; was He not 
hungry once ? " 

A movement on my part announced my presence ; she 
stopped, a little confused, then curtsied to me, remained 
standing, and thanked me for my visit. 

The old upholsterer who had but few ideas of his own, 
held those few fast. At the first pause, he took up his 
sheet of paper, and eyes sparkling with delight, handed it 
over to his wife. She read, blushed deeply, went to thq> 
table, wrote a few rapid words, placed the page under her 
husband's eyes, then, with animated gesture, tore the 
paper into fragments. Later I knew what those words 
had been, words never effaced from the old man's heart. 
They were these : " My husband, I am thy most happy 
wife and thy humble servant." 

All the charity in the world never yet made up for 
work. More than bread, more than help of any kind, the 
old upholsterer craved for occupation, craved to work at 
his trade. 

" I have at home an arm-chair which wants covering, a 
very handsome one. Could you repair it for me?" The 
old man's eyes sparkled. 

"Will you come?" 



136 TEE NEAR HORIZONS. 

u When 2" lie asked with a trembling voice. 

" Why, to-morrow ; the first fine day ; whenever it suits 
yon." 

"And I — I may bring my wife V 

" I should think so indeed." 

" Because, you see, she is a better hand still than I am." 

" Oh !" put in the wife, with a sweet smile. 

The old upholsterer's face lit up : in two seconds he 
grew ten years younger ; his forehead lost its wrinkles ; 
he drew himself up ; his chest expanded j he rubbed his 
hands ; what the sympathy of the wife, the charity of the 
benevolent, never could have done, work — his work did. 
His status returned j his youth, his vigour, his prospects. 

He ran to the press, opened a drawer, examined his tools 
one by one, taking up this, throwing aside that, without 
being any longer aware of my presence. His wife's expres- 
sion was quite heavenly ; she clasped her hands tight, and 
looked at me without saying a word. 

The morrow was a splendid day in June. 

Paris has not many rural retreats, but I may venture to 
say that, on that particular morning, my drawing-room, 
opening out on my garden, about sixty feet long by 
eighteen, had something so springlike, fresh, and balmy, 
that it made one dream Idyls. 

A bit of blue sky, a bit of green grass-plot ; glycine en- 
tangled in the trellis that covered the wall, that wall very 
low, with other gardens all around, beautiful rose-trees in 
flower, stands of geraniums which the bees were pillaging 
with busy murmurs, an awning that softened the light, 
rustic chairs, a table, and over it an acacia in full flower, 
from which each breeze that blew stole white perfumed 
petals to scatter them on the grass. Such was my garden, 
such my drawing-room. A poor reminiscence of nature, of 



THE DOVECOT. 137 

those mighty joys which expand your heart when you walk 
in the country ; God's great works around you, full of life 
and health, in sunshine and in liberty. 

Happy he whose eye may, from dawn to twilight, wander 
at will to distant horizons ! Happy he who sees the mea- 
dows grow green in April, who gathers the violet in the 
valley, who, with his own hands, alike plants and reaps ! 
Happy he who breathes the free fresh air of the country; 
to whom the breeze brings in through the open window 
the scent of the lucerne in flower ! Happy he who works 
at some healthy out-door work, whose faculties, continually 
reinvigorated, apply themselves fully, yet not feverishly, to 
the task God has assigned them, and who, when evening 
is come, returns not to the conventional duties of conven- 
tional life, but to the sacred pleasures of hearth and home. 

At seven o'clock in the morning, there was a ring at my 
bell. The old couple entered. They had made themselves 
smart; their worn, thread-bare garments had a sort of 
holiday air; they were both radiant. The worthy man 
could hardly eat his breakfast, he was in such a hurry. 
That over, he set to work, his face beaming. He had on 
his green baize apron ; his mouth was full of pins, and 
then came such cutting, measuring, pulling, fitting ; for he 
was hard to please, and began again twenty times, and yet 
he was so alert and rapid, had such a correct eye and expert 
hand, that the work got on as if by magic. 

His wife sewed, attentive to his directions, silent, her 
breast swelling with joy. 

My great anxiety was to get them to eat and to walk 
about ; their anxiety, that of the upholsterer especially — 
his wife understood me perfectly — was to work ; to work 
on, to shew his skill, to shew he had not forgotten his 
calling, and that he could execute a masterpiece, and that 



138 TEE NEAR HORIZONS. 

he had a pair of hands of his own capable of maintaining 
his wife without any need to beg. 

It was all I could do to get him away from that unlucky 
arm-chair, and to make him take an hour's rest in the 
garden in the middle of the day. But the sun flooded the 
room with light, the bees would sometimes wander about 
it, puffs of fragrance came wafting in. Then the uphol- 
sterer would raise his head, inhale the air, say, " It smells 
sweet here ;" and set to work harder than ever. 

That did not matter; he was happy in his own way, 
profoundly happy. He exchanged little playful words with 
his wife ; I heard them laugh, he with an abrupt chuckle, 
she with a clear, fresh laugh. 

The good times were come back again, he was making 
money, he should make more. God had granted his wife's 
request ; he, too, prayed with his whole heart, but as for 
his own prayers, he held them cheap. The prayers of his 
wife, oh, these would mount straight to heaven ! 

When evening came, I was called in. The arm-chair 
was finished; it was perfection ! I told him so; his hands 
trembled with delight ; he was a different man. He exa- 
mined his work, rather proud, not too much so, for he was 
accustomed to work well ; he looked well to do, hopeful, 
he was calm and composed for the first time. His wife 
contemplated him, then the arm-chair, then me ; one could 
see that she was returning thanks to God. It was she 
who was overcome now; happiness moved her more than 
sorrow had done. 

When they went away, the husband, with an easy gesture, 
offered her his arm ; it was he who protected her. 

Would that I could stop here, stop at this fine summer's 
day. Alas ! this time I have to go on to the end 



THE DOVECOT. 139 

The old upholsterer was not deceived ; work did come 
in. Not very abundantly, but steadily ; enough to keep 
the house, enough to make him happy. 

When I left Paris in July, the room had been modestly 
refurnished ; there was a pot of mignonette in the window, 
two canaries singing in a cage, the watch, the wedding gift, 
hung at the worthy woman's waist. It was a home, an 
affection that might well inspire envy ; it was the Dovecot. 

There are people who laugh at these ancient loves. Not 
so I. I pity those who believe that there blooms one short 
season for youthful tenderness, and that, this season over, 
the time to love is past, the heart withered, and nothing 
left but to lead a prosaic life, without fervour, sunshine, 
shade, or mystery. 

We were two lovers, a man, a woman ; we had a thou- 
sand delicacies of feeling in our soul ; all the shyness, all 
the fascination, all the secret ardour, even the little sorrows 
and the beautiful tears of a strong affection. Age comes ; 
we become mere companions. Two boon comrades, good 
fellows, heart in hand, easy tempered through indifference, 
equally amused, equally wearied with what remains of life, 
having nothing more to ask, not much to give, without 
hope, without regret, waiting for the time of separation, 
and when it comes, quitting each other with great com- 
posure ; we, who had loved one another with so great a 
love. 

Some find this very natural and supremely wise ; for my 
part, I find it revolting, and the dreariest folly. 

I left Paris. That year the cholera ravaged it cruelly. 

When I returned, the frozen breath of December was 
blowing through the streets, my apartments were cold, 
uncomfortable ; I had a good deal to do in my home. 



140 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 

One evening, it was New Year's Eve, my door-bell rang, 
the old upholsterer was asking for me. Could it indeed 
be he that I saw there seated on the bench, in the same 
spot as last year — alone, bent, with haggard eye? He 
looked at me fixedly. 

" I am hungry," he said, in a hollow voice. " That 's 
why I am come to trouble you." 

My mind at once foreboded some terrible misfortune 
that I did not dare to verify. He looked at me again ; 
saw that I knew nothing. Then, with a fearful outburst— 

" I have lost my wife !" he cried. " I have lost her, lost 
her, lost her !" and he buried his head in his hands. 

Then, in a melancholy voice, he began to repeat, as if to 
himself, the tragic story. 

It was very simple. In the thick of the cholera, tha 
poor woman had gone out to make a few purchases ; on 
returning, cholera had seized her, torn her to pieces in the 
course of four hours, during which she had not been able 
to say anything more to her husband than a 'Good-bye !' 
murmured out through her tortures. Her hands had been 
constantly clasped, her smile in dying that of an angel. 

" I have been alone ! — for three months ! I have no- 
thing, I am nothing, and yet I live ! — God Almighty has 
not yet had the charity to take me !" 

I gently placed my hand on his arm, as his wife was 
wont to do ; he shuddered ; and while he went on talking, 
in broken sentences, I was able to take in, one by one, the 
ravages his immense sorrow had made in this poor creature, 
weak in body, weak in mind. 

He was ragged, unshaven, untidy, almost dirty, — he who 
used to be so rigidly clean, to have his old clothes so neatly 
put on. His cheeks were thin and hanging, his eye burn- 
ing, his frame shaken by a constant and almost convulsive 



THE DOVECOT. 141 

sMver. He spoke much, and fast, hardly seemed to hear 
himself, could not listen to me at all ; went on with his 
wail like the wave of the sea, which beats again and again 
on the same portion of the shore. If I struck strongly a 
religious chord, it would, indeed, give back a feeble sound ; 
but this rather from force of habit than its own proper 
vibration ; despair had swallowed up all. 

" I don't do any more work ; I have no head for it," he 
said. "I keep going, I walk, I go errands when I get 
them, I am a gone man ! — and I can't die /" he cried 
vehemently, starting up. " / eat, could you believe that I 
eat ?- — Yes, I am mean enough to eat because I am hungry. 
I am devoured with hunger." 

I had some food, some broth brought in ; he would 
not touch them, his throat was closed ; he said it did 
him good to talk, good to weep, that was enough for 
him. 

Man feels his littleness before the sea in storm. The 
consciousness of his own impotence overwhelms him. He 
can but contemplate the everlasting surge, the boundless 
horizon, and lend a meditative ear to that mighty voice 
marching on the waters. There is another ocean which 
makes him feel his limitations more keenly still — the 
infinite of woe ! some one of those fathomless sorrows, 
with no earthly hope, which feed upon themselves ; some 
Promotheus on his rock, with vitals constantly gnawed ; 
some abyss where every consolation, every aid, is swallowed 
up at once and disappears. 

I did not tell this man that he had made himself an idol, 
and that God had broken it ; I did not tell him that his 
wife was a creature, and that our hearts must not attach 
themselves to creatures ; I did not tell him that the 
Christian is to rejoice when God has made Mm weep. I 



142 THE FEAR HORIZONS. 

have found consolations of this kind in the books of men ; 
I have never seen such in the book of God. 

Only, in a voice that I tried hard to render calm, I 
gently asked him whether he would, at this very hour, 
recall her from the heaven where she was, to the earth 
where he suffered. 

That idea struck him. "No, no !" he answered, with a 
burst of tenderness and tears. 

" Would you have her in your place, you in hers % n 

"No, no !" he said, in almost a joyous tone. 

" The Lord loved her much/' 

He repeated ' loved her much' several times ; he hugged 
the words to his heart ; it was his first ray of light : He 
loved her much ! — that reconciled him to the sovereign 
decree of his God : He loved her much ! — that idea worked 
its royal luminous way through his soul. Loved her much 
— much ! The poor man went away repeating those words. 

That evening he could take no other food. 

The following day I went to his house. Over the door 
one saw a little black plate with white letters, " Here lies 
Benard, widower J" That was his name, — widower was 
written in immense letters. 

My heart was wrung. Suffering had been stronger than 
this man's reason. 

On entering, I stood still on the threshold. Benard was 
sitting motionless before the alcove, which he looked at 
fixedly. The bed had disappeared ; it had been dragged 
into a corner of the room. It was unmade, disorderly. In 
the alcove rose a sort of catafalque, extremely finished in 
all its details. 

I approached. Benard sprang towards me, took me by 
the hand, and led me to the alcove. 

"This is what I have been doing I" he said, in a tone 



THE DOVECOT. 143 

tliat revealed a species of satisfaction through all its sorrow. 
"See !" and his voice shook more and more, his gestures 
became febrile. " See ! here is her table, covered with 
black cloth; here is the cage, the canaries are dead, — in 
my agony I forgot them : she would not have done so ; she 
would not ! Here are white flowers, — whatever I gain, I 
put it all here ; all that is given me — all ! Here is her 

watch, the watch that " Tears choked him. " It has 

never gone since that day ; here is her wedding-ring ; here 
is her shawl, — her poor shawl." 

He fell on his knees, hid his face in the shawl, buried 
his head there. I heard him sob : I remembered the 
silence of the friends of Job. Then from beneath the 
folds— 

"She was my faith," he began again, in a despairing 
voice ; " she taught me to love Jesus, to support affliction ; 
she has taken away everything with her — everything ! I 
do not pray any more ; I do not know whether I believe ! 
Will God have anything to do with me V 

At this fearful thought, this thunderbolt hurled by 
Satan's deadly hand, he tore away the shawl in which he 
had wound himself, and shewed me a face so distorted, 
that it made me shudder. Without knowing well what I 
was doing, — with one of those dumb cries which the Lord 
hears, I snatched at a book, which I recognised as it lay 
on a chair, and I placed it open upon the catafalque. 
Benard saw it, rose, bent over the pages without touching 
them, with an eager eye, like one dying in the desert over 
living water. 

" Death shall be no more," he began tremblingly to read. 
" There shall be no more sorrow, — nor crying, — nor pain ; 
■ — for the former things have passed away." 

The almost frantic man grew gentle as a child. 



144 THE FEAR HORIZONS. 

He took up the book reverently, kissed it, and put it 
back where I had placed it. 

" It is her book, — her New Testament ; and I who had 
forgotten it ! Yes, there ! it is well placed there ! Her 
beautiful book, in which she read every morning ; which 
we read together every evening ! It is thy answer to me, 
my beloved ! It is thy message ; thou givest it to me ; 
yes, thou biddest me from God to have hope. Yes, yes ; I 
will read, I will pray, I will submit, — that I will : He will 
have pity on me ; we shall be together." 

From that moment .the old upholsterer was more calm ; 
with relapses into desolation, almost rebellion, he still pro- 
gressed in his obedience. Sometimes he believed strongly 
enough to be happy ; sometimes he doubted, and was lost 
in misery ; sometimes he would be overwhelmed with re- 
morse ; at others, he would lay hold on the forgiveness of 
Jesus. 

His was a weak, worn-out head ; one of those natures 
that the wise willingly reprimand, because they are fatigu- 
ing, full of incoherence, full of contradictions ; because in 
dealing with them, one has always to begin anew, and one 
likes to see an end to every undertaking, even the best. 
His was one of those poor hearts : mighty to suffer, un- 
fitted for daily life ; violent, earnest, impossible to divert, 
humble, broken always, for which the Lord has ineffable 
tendernesses. 

He worked no more ; his pride in his calling, his trade, 
his skill, — all that was over. He wandered about, picking 
up odd jobs as a porter. But in the alcove his former self 
returned. There the upholsterer revived ; the old, ardent, 
exact upholsterer devoted to his business ; every penny 
that he earned, every alms he received, went, there. There 
he fitted on different stuffs, decorated continually, invented 



THE DOVECOT, 145 

new devices. Half famished, ill-clothed, ill-kept, he still 
possessed in the matter of his catafalque all his former 
enthusiasm and most minute exactness. People said, " You 
should clothe him : it is no use to give him money ; it all 
goes in knick-knacks and nonsense ; it only feeds his folly." 
But his folly was one of those which will be fed. If you 
cut off their allowance, they devour the heart. 

One day the old upholsterer came to me almost radiant. 
"I have an idea!" he said. "It may take me years to 
carry out. But, never mind ; I shall do so in the end." 
He lowered his voice : " I mean to hang my room with 
black, with white cords and white drops. When this is 
finished, I have a notion that Jesus will take me." 

He shewed me the box in which his treasures were 
accumulating, — a five-franc piece, some smaller money, his 
daily bread, his daily toil. 

Before it was finished, Jesus took him. 




MARIETTA. 

you will not come and see Marietta ? She 
understands French, and then you would be 
giving her so much pleasure !" 

Thus spoke Master Schimp. Master Schimp was a 
shoemaker, settled in the little German town held in charge 
by the old General, where I had gone with the Baroness. 

Master Schimp had brought home my shoes. He some- 
times made shoes for me ; and when finished he brought 
them home, and when he brought them, he sat down, and 
tvhen he sat down, he never knew when to get up again ! 

He was a hale, thick-set man of seventy, as wrinkled as 
an ancient banner, with a tangled shock of hair, small, 
clear gray eyes, a flexible mouth, a comfortable opinion of 
himself, and the best heart in the world. 

He talked well, and he talked a great deal in French, 
and almost without accent; in a neat, precise fashion, 
allowing himself full leisure to seek for the fit expression, 
which being once found, he proceeded at a steady pace, 
even and monotonous as the drip of water. 

Steadying his green bag between his legs, he would dive 
rrom time to time into the capacious depths of his pocket 
for his snuff-box, and giving it three short, sharp taps upon 
the lid, would say to me, while he helped himself to a large 
and liberal pinch — 

"You do not take snuff?" then, shaking the box, he 
would give his shirt-front a side sweep of the hand, and 
resume the thread of his discourse. 



MARIETTA. 147 

Have you ever known what it is to sit in the very fever- 
heat of impatience, upright and smiling, with now and then 
a gentle inclination of the head, a yes and no repeated at 
fitting intervals ; while in your heart, far below this sur- 
face affability, a voice went on exclaiming, " Provoking 
unconscionable creature, do you never mean to go away at 
all ? You have been here at least an hour ! and no doubt 
will sit there for another ! Oh that somebody else would 
want me ! would come to fetch me away ! " 

Then conscience murmurs, " Selfish being ! are sixty 
tedious minutes so very unendurable ! And is not this 
my neighbour, my brother, worth far more, it may be, than 
myself 1 If it was money he wanted, it would be given him, 
— it is so easy to be bountiful ; but the bounty of a little 
kindness is not so readily bestowed." 

The mind takes this into account, and says, " Let patience 
have its work; little annoyances pave the way to great 
obediences. Bend to this one with a good will. It is 
now and then that we meet with a lion on the path ; but 
ants will run across it every day." 

" True," replies the first voice ; " but, on the whole, I 
should prefer a lion." 

So proceeds this confidential discussion, and with it, 
Master Schimp at full length. He holds forth ; he goes 
back to his youthful days ; upon reminiscences he engrafts 
anecdotes, in no way remarkable for point or purpose ; he 
branches off towards religion, he branches off towards 
philosophy. The unfortunate man, it seems, has been a 
reader ; has picked up everywhere the odds and ends of 
all things, and has forgotten nothing ! We pass, by an 
easy transition, from philosophy to politics, from politics 
to France, and from France to Paris, his favourite place of 
residence; he lived there ten years in the days of the 



148 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 

great Napoleon. Napoleon sets him en croupe, and carries 
Mm to Germany ; the Allies bring him back to Paris, — to 
the streets as they were then, and to the streets as they 
are now; their original names, and those they are now 
known by ! 

And the snn is sinking, the fresh, cool evening stealing 
on j is it all to be absorbed in this way? A studied silence, 
a slight fit of coughing, a fidgety rearrangement of the 
chairs, but nothing will do. 

Till at last he began to talk about Marietta. 

And who was Marietta 1 An invalid cousin, whom, with 
her sister, he had taken to live with him. 

And Marietta, be she who or what she might be, saved 
me. I blessed her, and putting on my bonnet, drew a 
long, relieved breath, and said, " We will go." 

Even Master Schimp, who was not easily impressed, 
seemed struck with this sudden energy. A few steps 
brought us to his small neat dwelling, coloured with the 
peculiar spinach-green the Germans are so fond of. Its 
windows shone and sparkled with cleanliness ; on one side 
of the door was the shop where he kept his men at work, 
reserving for him self (as we have seen) the task of carrying 
his goods to their destination. 

A pleasant-looking middle-aged woman, Marietta's sister, 
who was standing on the door-step, moved aside to let us 
pass. Master Schimp went into the shop, put down his 
parcel, and taking the leg of a boot out of the hands of one 
of his men, he addressed him at some length in German, 
which address, or one of similar weight and emphasis, he 
appeared to repeat to another of them, while carefully ex- 
amining an upper leather ; he then looked at me with a 
smile which seemed to say, " You have perhaps understood 
a little," to which I replied by a lowly gesture of depreca- 



MARIETTA. 149 

tion, when he smiled again, and, replacing his hat by a 
green shade, put on his spectacles, and with another dive 
for his snuff-box, another pinch, preceded by the three 
sharp taps, he murmured an apology for passing before 
me, and led the way into a dark passage. 

I followed him, and as we went he said, "So you do not 
know Marietta 1 Well, then, you have something curious 
to see !" 

He opened the door, and as the light streamed into the 
passage, I saw indeed something which seemed rather to 
spring than rise out of a chair, and come forward to meet 
us. I stopped short, and but for one of Master Schimp' s 
quick keen glances, I think I should have screamed. How 
shall I describe this something, this poor, strangely de- 
formed creature, three feet at most in height, and with a 
head so out of all just proportion as to recall the paste- 
board monstrosities that milliners sometimes use for blocks ; 
her hands, in the absence of arms, sticking out of hei 
shoulders, more like fins, it seemed to me, than hands; 
without legs, almost without feet — a maillot, set upright 
on the earth ! And yet this lived; it spoke; it had a soul: 
even now it was colouring deeply. 

Master Schimp, who had meant to produce a strong 
effect, looked just a little remorseful at the extent of his 
success. This passed, however, with the moment, and a 
few laughing words with Marietta set him at one with 
himself again. 

" No fear, cousin ; ' a friend/ as one says to the patrol. 
Come now, we are going to have a little French." 

And Master Schimp began to exhibit his prodigy. 
While he recounted, -without sparing me a single date or 
incident, how after having brought Marietta to live with 
him, he had first taught her to read and write in German, 



150 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 

and then to read and write in French ; how he had fol- 
lowed this up by arithmetic, the two grammars, geography, 
and history ; and how Marietta had taught herself knitting, 
embroidering, and all varieties of needlework; while he 
shewed me her copy-books, and drew a crotchet collar out 
of the poor girl's work-basket, Marietta, who had been at 
first even painfully embarrassed, began to be more at her 
ease. She looked at her cousin with mild eyes so full of 
gratitude, of affection, of deep respect, of implied confi- 
dence, that they seemed able to take in no other object. 

And I, too, had by this time regained my self -possession. 
I ventured to look again at Marietta, and again not with- 
out a shock ; so pitiable, so appalling was this malforma- 
tion, that the heart knew not what to make of it. It was 
a contradiction, an impossibility. One's innate sense of 
fitness seemed outraged by such a strange freak on the 
part of Nature, and when I remembered that Nature was 
but another word for the Creator, and that this deplorable 
travesty had been permitted, a wherefore of fearful import 
arose within my mind. It came there, however, and was* 
gone like a flash; another look, and the dark surmise 
passed away for ever. This poor head could boast of its 
dark abundant hair, of fine eyes, and of regular features, 
but it was not in these that its charm was found, but in 
the tender, inexpressible charm of its expression ; in the 
joy, the peace, the purity, that spoke there with such a 
pure, restrained simplicity — the soul looking forth so 
clearly, that one forgot whether the body was there or not. 

But had this soul itself, — Marietta's, any thoughts about 
the singular setting in which it found itself ? It might be 
so, but the consciousness was not apparent. After the first 
embarrassment of my introduction was over, Marietta 
talked to me without constraint ; her voice had a youth- 



MARIETTA. 151 

ful, touching tone in it that went very straight to the 
heart. 

Master Schimp was called away, and the expression of 
her eyes changed a little ; they seemed to send forth a 
dimmer light, as a lamp does after it has been let down. 

" My cousin is so kind," she exclaimed, with animation ; 
" so very kind ; he spoils me," she added, with a smile ; 
" he thinks that I know everything, when I scarcely know 
anything at all And everything is his doing ; he has been 
both father and mother to me." 

Her eyes filled, and I saw that her heart, too, was very 
full. After a short silence, she went on, as if in answer to 
my unspoken thought — 

" I am happy ; the Lord Jesus has loved me, — a poor 
little creature like me," (this was the only allusion she made 
to her infirmities.) " My cousin loves me, too ; my sister, 
everybody ; the day is not long, and in the evenings we 
read together, and are very happy." 

"You go out sometimes?" 

" Not now ; my cousin had a little carriage made for me, 
which he used to draw, but since a very serious illness, I 
have not been able to bear the movement of the wheels." 

"And you will sometimes wish for a sight of the 
country?" 

Marietta coloured slightly. "Once I used," she said, 
"but not now. I look elsewhere." Then, after a short 
silence, and because she saw me look sorrowful, she added, 
" There are flowers in Paradise." 

Yes, I thought, — and a glorified body ; but this I did 
not say to her. 

She had lived,, it was evident, in an atmosphere of kind- 
ness, and having never been exposed to those collisions 
which wound the heart just when it is seeking to expand, 



152 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 

she expressed her feelings artlessly, and just as they 
arose. 

"My greatest sorrow is, that I am ungrateful. Yes," 
she continued, not quite understanding my look of surprise, 
" you would not have believed it of me, and yet it is so. 
There are times when I am so cast down; everything 
seems so dull, and my heart so heavy. Then I could 
gladly cry ; but this never lasts long, and God forgives me 
for it. He has forgiven me all." 

She then began to tell me how she spent her time. 

Her cousin had so stored her mind with knowledge, had 
so built up her life in the strength of practical faith, that 
in neither was there room left for weariness or for despair ; 
and this poor being, disinherited even of the outward sem- 
blance of humanity, had gone on her way unchallenged by 
any of those desolating problems which pierce through the 
very bones and marrow, and make the knees of the strong 
to bow under them. 

Cousin Schimp did nothing, it was plain, by halves ; he 
had finished off his work, just as he had finished off his 
sentences. It was impossible to look round the room 
without being struck with the exquisite keeping of its 
arrangements. Marietta's furniture, arm-chair, table, desk, 
even her vase of flowers, were all adapted to her height : 
everything was pretty, everything perfect in its way ; little 
steps to enable her to reach the window, and the splendid 
stock which was now beginning to blossom. All this 
seemed quite fit and natural ; the eye was not startled, but 
as it passed over the little interior picture, and took in all 
this watchful considerate detail, one felt something like a 
loving Presence there in the warm, wide bounty of a 
loving thought. 

The door burst suddenly open. Six rosy, curly, little 



MARIETTA. 153 

iris, basket on arm, rushed in tumultuously, and flew to 
Marietta, almost overwhelming her with kisses. Now it 
was that her face lightened up in earnest, and her smile 
grew heavenly. 

" I teach them," she said, " to read and work." 

It was worth something to see the happy, self-important 
look of the little things as they placed themselves on each 
side of Marietta. 

I left her, and as I went into the shop, met Master 
Schimp, green shade, spectacles, and snuff-box. 

"Well?" he said. 

I could not speak, but pressed his hands within my 
own. 

" She is my child," he said, in a subdued tone. 

Master Schimp, you are a great man; and Thou, my 
G-od, art the great God of earth and heaven ! 




THE SCFLPTOE. 

N a foggy day of December, I found myself in one 
of the oldest streets of the old city of Paris. I 
was seeking there, guided by the address of a 
letter received the evening before, the dwelling of a sculptor. 
It was no easy task. The street was composed of mud, of 
two walls, behind which was land to be sold, of piles of 
rubbish, and five or six miserable houses. All this was 
enveloped in a noisome fog. After going backwards and 
forwards many times, I discovered the number, half effaced 
and half fallen down with the plaster. 

The house fully responded to the street. The very walls 
spoke of poverty, stained as they were with that nauseous 
hue, the result of mud, of filth, and of rain, which is the 
general paint of the hovels of the poor. There was no 
porter ; the foot slipped on the dark and slimy staircase ; 
at each landing-place a faint ray of light struggled through 
a small window, which was soon lost again in the gloomy 
labyrinth. Here and there dilapidated doors opened on 
some miserable threshold. At length I found the one I 
sought ; it stood half-opened ; I pushed it and entered. 
To the right of me was a kind of studio or workshop, 
strewed with statuettes, and tools, and clay ; at the bottom 
of this a larger chamber. It had lofty windows, but one 
half was paper, the other cobweb. If was a dim light that 
entered there. For the rest, it was a chaos ! A mere con- 
fusion of casts and plaster, and more tools, and broken 



THE SCULPTOR. 155 

chairs, and cooking utensils, and an old petticoat, crusts of 
bread, and something left upon a plate, cold and disgusting. 

Near the window were two children ; one of twelve years, 
thin, with pale face, with large eyes of extreme sweetness, 
and long hair, soft and thick, which gave to his features 
an almost feminine delicacy. With his long thin fingers he 
was modelling, entirely absorbed in his work. I imagine 
that Kaphael, when a child, had just that melancholy face. 

His brother, a smaller child, with round, full features, 
but pale also and sickly, watched him at his work. When 
he walked, I saw that he was lame. 

At the noise of my entrance both turned, then took to 
consider me with the same astonishment. 

I asked for their father. 

The elder one put aside his model, made some steps for- 
ward j the other followed, limping. I penetrated into the 
recess, they returned to the window. 

It was so dark where I was, that for a moment I could 
distinguish nothing. The air, too, was stifling, a fit of 
coughing seized me, which was so far opportune that it 
relieved me from some embarrassment. A sonorous yet 
broken voice asked what and who it was. My name told 
him nothing ; for a silence followed, in which I felt an air 
of constraint. There was nothing heard but that hissing 
respiration which marks the last stage of consumption. 

It was the wife of the sculptor who had written to me ; 
the husband, it was evident, knew nothing of it. 

Feeling my way to a chair, I muttered something about 
art, about statuettes, awkwardly enough. 

Meanwhile, my sight grew accustomed to the obscurity. 
I began to discern a bedstead, and a man sitting up in it, 
breathing hard, and looking at me in silence. 

It was a noble countenance, one of those faces that 



156 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 

attract you at once by their sympathetic revelations; 
whilst there are others you may have seen twenty years, 
and may see twenty years more, which remain flat, and 
hard, and secret as a wall. 

He had a piercing eye, dark hair thrown backwards, a 
forehead beautifully formed, a beard slightly touched with 
gray, mouth refined, candid, loyal, and an air of distinction 
which was felt even through his extreme pallor. 

" Is it as artist — or amateur 1 " 

" Both — a little. I have heard your works spoken of ; 
you are suffering ; I think that " 

The sculptor saw that I was embarrassed. Without 
stopping for explanation, with a charming smile, and the 
perfect air of high breeding that seeks to put at his ease 
some stranger fallen from the clouds, he called to his son — 

"Francis, shew us the Rachel, the Child with the 
Butterfly, and the Young Girl." 

Francis brought these little figures, and with them two 
or three of revolutionary subjects, which the father had 
not asked for. In the first there was great talent, and 
true f eeling for the ideal, and a supreme elegance of form ; 
the others were inferior ; they were highly finished, but it 
was the tool of the workman more than the thought of the 
artist that you saw. In fact, it was trade and speculation ; 
a bill drawn on the popular passions of the day. The 
sculptor at bay had asked for bread. Poverty, not art, had 
inspired them. 

" Oh, these are nothing ! " he said, pushing them aside ; 
11 the others, perhaps, have some merit." 

The ice was now broken ; he talked of sculpture, paint- 
ing, music. On everything he spoke well ; in simple un- 
pedantic style; in the language of good society, as the 
highly-educated gentleman. One felt there was some ter- 



TEE SCULPTOR. 157 

rible incongruity in his life ; some degrading circumstance 
was tyrannising over him. The scene by which he was 
surrounded was not the only proof; certain intonations, 
certain gestures, involuntary habits of another life, struck 
me with pain ; and he himself became conscious of them, 
for he suddenly paused. 

"I have worked too much," he said; "during three 
months I have laboured night as well as day. It was for 
a physician, — he wanted some anatomical models : one 
must earn one's bread ! " 

His voice failed ; but afterwards he resumed more gaily — 

"This illness of mine is nothing, — some influenza. I 
am better ; in a few days I shall be well. I have work 
enough to do." 

The idea had crossed his mind that I had come on some 
charitable errand. It was but a momentary thought ; but 
it knit his brow, gave a hard, dry tone to his speech, and 
threw over his whole demeanour an air almost of hauteur. 
By a brisk turn in the conversation, I dissipated this idea, 
and he again became natural and gracious in his manner. 

I admired enthusiastically the Child with the Butterfly 
and the Young Girl. The eye of the sculptor kindled. 
Artist and man, — the artist, proud of his work ; the man, 
proud of his unsubdued energy : both seemed to revive. 
He raised his head with easy complacent movement ; life 
and almost gaiety was restored. I asked permission to 
carry away with me those little masterpieces. 

"It is you who grant the favour by taking them ! " 
And there was that air of the perfect gentleman as he said 
this, that positively I did not dare to ask the price of the 
little figures, nor to deposit it on the old chair that served 
us for table. 

At this moment his wife entered : a woman of lofty 



158 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 

stature, thin, draped in a faded tartan. She had regular 
features, a majestic carriage, a tragic step. When she saw 
me, she concealed under the folds of her shawl the long 
carrots and the loaf of bread she had brought in her 
basket. 

The sculptor turned his face to the wall, and was silent. 
It seemed to me that I comprehended something of the 
mystery of his destiny. 

This woman deposited her basket ; then, with a theatri- 
cal gesture, embraced her children, as Medea might have 
done her sons. She looked at me, saw who I was, and 
knowing the errand on which I had come, beckoned me 
out of the recess ; then she extended her hand, received 
the sum I placed in it, spoke to me, with great emphasis 
of voice and manner, of her husband, of herself, of the ex- 
pensive malady, of poetry and literature ; and finally 
launched into abstruse regions, where she lost her footing, 
and I too. In everything, the tone rang false; she de- 
claimed as on the stage ; not that she was absolutely dis- 
sembling, but there are human instruments which, from the 
beginning to the end, have a false pitch. The worst is, 
that such instruments never cease ; they clang through all, 
and put others to silence. There are people whose very 
nature is an extravagance ; with whom simple truth would 
be an affectation ; whose thoughts are always mounted upon 
stilts; who must talk through a speaking-trumpet. The 
wife of the sculptor was one of these creatures. Very 
stately, always inflated, constantly preoccupied with her 
own dignity, full of mystery, profoundly oracular, playing 
her comedy very seriously, as if queen of the theatre, — 
perhaps she had been. 

The sculptor did not open his mouth. By his short, 
nervous cough I knew that he was impatient ; I left. 



THE SCULPTOR. 159 

I returned often; the sculptor grew worse and worse. 
He always said he was better ; did he believe it ? 

By degrees he grew more sociable. When his wife was 
absent, he talked with perfect ease, with a perfect freedom 
of mind. There was rarely an allusion to other times, or 
it was so veiled, so covert, or so slight, that only a quick 
observer could have detected it. We talked of art ; each 
time I carried away some statuette. One day — there 
remained very little else beside — I chose to covet a little 
Kepublican figure, — a Buonapartist, I know not exactly 
what. The artist looked at me with his keen, clear eye. 

"You wish that 1 ?" he said, with a tone slightly con- 
temptuous. 

" Yes ! it pleases me ; it has energy." 

He reflected for an instant : a tenderness stole over his 
countenance ; he stretched out his hand — 

" Thanks ! " he said, then fell back upon the pillow. 

This was the only occasion on which, upon that terrible 
question of money, he departed from his accustomed re- 
serve, his proud rigidity of manner. 

Between him and his wife there was a wall, a gulf, — I 
know not which to call it. She attended on him with a 
certain ostentatious respect ; but without tact, or taste, or 
any anticipation of his wants. He, on his part, never 
addressed to her a single reproach; he never called her to 
his side. She declaimed about herself and her services as 
she did on all subjects. Meanwhile, she left him in that 
dark recess. He never asked to be drawn from it, and 
she never dreamt that he had need of fresher air. Around 
him no comfort, no little attentions ; and in the chamber, 
no attempt at order or cleanliness. One might as well 
have expected a Clytemnestra to sweep out the kitchen. 

With all the pretensions of the great lady, this woman 



160 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 

was mean to excess. This man, under Ms poverty, in 
Ms rags, on his pallet, in his silence, had an incomparable 
nobility. 

More than once we conversed, or rather I spoke, of God 
and of the future ; he listened to me, but did not answer. 

She discoursed abundantly on Providence and the Su- 
preme Being, and poured forth her pious insipidities. He 
coughed, looked towards me, then turned away. On those 
days I obtained not a word from him. 

Soon, alas ! there took place what in all such unions, at 
a given hour, is sure to follow. As the malady advanced, 
as his feebleness increased, he who was born to dominate, 
was subjected to the coarser will This was brought about 
without a struggle, without noise, without premeditation. 
The woman was robust, powerful, could comprehend animal 
courage, and in proportion as the sculptor lost his strength^ 
the fear that she had of displeasing him vanished from her 
mind. She did not attend to him less, if she could be said 
to have attended to him at all. At my suggestion, she 
even decided to draw his bed into the open chamber ; but 
she put less restraint upon herself, she talked louder, she 
harangued more frequently, she took less pains to conceal 
from him the reception of pecuniary aid. Formerly, she 
used to accompany me to the door, leave her hand open, 
when I had deposited my offering in it, she would, with 
mute solemnity, point her finger to the skies ! JSTow, she 
made constant open allusions to domestic wants. The 
sculptor frowned or sighed ; then subduing himself by an 
effort of self-command, and casting, as it seemed to me, a 
retrospective glance over a past in which all had proved 
false or illusory, he shrugged his shoulders, — >an ironical 
smile played upon his lips, the smile of the man of the 
world at the treacheries of fortune. 



THE SCULPTOR 161 

There had been some great blunder followed by its great 
penalty. 

The disorder made frightful progress. The sculptor 
spoke no more of recovery; neither did he speak of dying; 
he kept silence. 

I think he liked me ; at least he saw me with pleasure. 
I belonged to his own class, and then I certainly did not 
harangue or perorate. 

One day he said to me, with failing voice, " I know you 
will take a pleasure in rendering me a service. Ask of 

," he did not name her, " my last pledges, and go to 

the Mont-de-Piete\ go yourself, and withdraw my set of 
napkins. I want," he said, looking round him with disgust, 
" something clean." 

I pressed his hand. 

Early on the morrow I was there with the packet of 
napkins. The bed, drawn out of the recess, stood close to 
the window ; you saw distinctly the beautiful lines of his 
pallid face; the eyelids were half-closed, there was a smile 
upon his mouth. He raised his eyes, saw the packet, and, 
hardly observing me at the moment, began immediately, 
with trembling hands, to undo it. 

"Ah, yes!" he said; "yes! I recognise them, my 
beautiful napkins. Yes ! there is my number, 120 ; they 
are the same." 

He took them, one after the other, and buried his face 
in the soft folds of the damask, revelling in the sweet 
odour of cleanliness. Closing his eyes, all his old luxury 
came in vision around him. Weakness fell on him — physical 
or moral, I know not. His grand head sunk in the pillow ; 
the napkins fell from his hand. When his eyes next opened, 
he fixed them intently on the sky* which was now growing 
pale with the close of day. 

L 



162 THE FEAR HORIZONS. 

Have you felt when death approaches a human soul, one 
of those noble souls that God endows with poetry and 
truth and power, and that the world has deceived, that it 
has perhaps spoilt — have you felt before that strength 
which is dying down, before those nameless miseries, before 
those poor failing limbs, — have you felt an immense pity 
rise into your heart, — have you felt a mute, ineffable ten- 
derness penetrate into your very marrow, — have you felt, 
notwithstanding the ardour of your faith, that your mouth 
was frozen, and your throat closed, dried up? Without 
voice, without a word, have you fallen on your knees, con- 
scious of your absolute incapacity, prostrated, exhausted, 
before the God who saves ? If you have felt this, you 
know what I at this moment experienced. 

The sculptor never turned his head, nor withdrew his 
gaze j he was absorbed in the contemplation of the darken- 
ing sky. 

His wife did not venture to touch the napkins, thrown 
by hazard here and there upon the bed ; the children stood 
by motionless. This state of things continued for some 
time. 

The day following, at six o'clock in the morning, I re- 
ceived a letter with the deepest of black borders. The 
sculptor had died in the night; his wife prayed me to 
come to her. 

I was very little disposed to do so, nevertheless I went. 
It lay there, that noble head, cold, and with an ideal beauty. 
It lay there, that poor body, extended, weak with the last 
utter weakness. The soul, in its departure, had left peace 
upon the brow ; it was calm, clear, unwrinkled, and the 
lips had taken their first delicate contour. 

At my entrance, the widow, raising herself to her full 
height, and standing with her two hands upon the heads of 



THE SCULPTOR. 163 

her two sons, one foot advanced — tragic attitude of the 
desolated mother — began to pour out her benediction upon 
these orphans, in a discourse swelling with redundant 
epithets. It was an actress, wanting only the passion of 
one. 

Francis stood with eyes cast down, and tears running on 
his cheeks ; a slight bending of his head, as if to withdraw 
it from the hand of his mother, betrayed an internal revolt ; 
he was subjected, but he suffered. 

The younger brother, utterly inattentive, looked here and 
there, kneading all the time a piece of clay in his fingers. 
He was accustomed to his mother's declamations ; one 
more or less mattered little ; when she had done, he would 
return to his playthings. And he did return to them. 

Now there entered a working man, a moulder, a taker of 
casts ; honest fellow enough, in rude health, red lip, black 
moustache, ignorant of suffering. " Ha ! ; ' he said; " seems 
that it is all over ! Poor man ! " 

The widow resumed an attitude, and improvised ex- 
pressly for him a new monologue, to which he listened 
with open mouth, and with some pleasure, as if all were 
passing at a theatre. 

The grief of the widow was not certainly to the level of 
her demonstrations, yet there was some sincerity in her 
tears. She felt that the dead man extended there, had 
been the poetry, the ideal of her life. All that was gone, 
never to return. Besides, he had been kind to her. His 
own illusion and bitter disenchantment, she had hardly 
suspected. Whilst he could work at his art, he had con- 
cealed them from her; when ill, she accounted for his 
silence by his malady ; she could see no further. Now 
that he was dead, she paid what respect she could. Here 
was the man with plaster to take a cast of her husband. 



164 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 

This was all in her part. And then he had a beautiful 
head, and then — the cast would sell. 

When she had finished her discourse, the man took his 
plaster, and threw handfuls of it on the face of the dead. 
The younger boy approached the moulder, and followed his 
operations with a curious eye. The elder son concealed 
himself in the solitary workshop. 

As to the widow, she had put on her shawl, and gone to 
seek something for the pot aufeu. 




THE AEBOTTE. 

j|ND now I return, to seat myself under the service- 
tree Arbour at the Old Manor-house in my 
father's garden. 
This garden had broad walks, bordered with box; it 
was well walled in. The orchard trees looked over the 
wall, and above the orchard trees rose the misty mountain, 
in successive stages — some wooded, some bare, all with 
projecting-roofed cottages, perched on a peak, or hidden in 
a dell ; the Jura, with its dark pines, and upper pastures, 
dotted here and there with chalets, dominating all. 

In April, before the leaves are out, the service-tree 
arbour is starred with yellow flowers ; bees swarm there, 
the buzzing is like that of a hive. Through the flowery 
branches, you see the sky, with light fleecy clouds, moving 
on gently before the softened breeze. Behind the arbour 
there is the stand of bee-hives — a beautiful stand, resting 
against the bakehouse, facing due east, and covered with 
wild vine ; four rows of hives displaying themselves proudly 
in their smooth, polished deal case. 

In May, when the apple-trees of the garden are in flower, 
you might take them for orange-trees ; then it is that 
spring-tide scents and living murmur spread all round ; the 
branches scatter a very rain of pink petals and golden 
pollen ; the bees seem delirious with delight ; bright-hued 
insects poise themselves over the fragrant tufts ; there is an 
exuberant burst of blossom on all sides. The ground is 



166 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 

still bare, except for the gay tulip beds, but the white 
silvery dome of the fruit-trees, with the blue sky above 
them, make the garden a gorgeous scene such as man could 
never have imagined, had not the country been strewn 
abundantly with such by God's bounteous hand. 

On fine May Sunday evenings, when one is seated be- 
neath the service-tree arbour, one can hear the village girls 
going round the large green enclosure in groups, hand 
clasped in hand, taking the road that winds through the 
meadows, with the Alps sparkling at the horizon. The 
girls, as they go keep singing plaintive songs, their voice 
dwelling chiefly on the high notes, and having a certain 
shrill and melancholy, wild and sylvan character, that re- 
calls the fragrance of the lily of the valley. While the 
moon rises, they go on stringing couplet on couplet, some- 
times nearer, sometimes further, always in one measure. 
Occasionally this mournful song is broken by bursts of 
laughter. This occurs when the young men, who follow at 
a distance, also in parties, and hand in hand, have stopped 
short to wait the return of the young girls, and stop their 
way. Then the song bursts out again, clear as crystal, 
full of wild modulations, fraught with an inexpressible 
poetry, only to be met with in the fields. Night falls, the 
stars light up ; gradually, the singers return to the village, 
everything is silent except the frog, who croaks discreetly 
at the edge of the brook. 

In June, the whole country is leafy; there are deep 
shadows, and places scorched with sunshine. The arbour 
is well, shut in by its service-tree ; you catch warblings, 
little cries, flutterings, flapping of wings ; and, when even- 
ing comes, whole broods shelter amidst the branches. 
Through them we can just see the hives, from whence 
exhales a scent of virgin-wax ; the bees hang on them in 



TEE ARBOUR. 167 

brown clusters ; they keep returning with bundles of pollen 
round their legs, and such buzzing, and such frantic haste ! 
At the mouth of each hive — on the stand which is gilded 
by the yellow dust dropping from the spoil — stand the 
sentinels, strongly entrenched, their head within, their body 
outside the hive, making the air vibrate with the rapid 
movement of their wings. 

A clump of trees shelters the stand of hives from the 
north winds : nut-trees, elders, lilacs, privet, the chestnut 
with its fan-like leaves, and the maple ; all these with their 
soft tones and infinite shades ; their bright display ; their 
cool depths of verdure. On the top of the wall, pinks 
blossom among the stones; and there are wild poppies 
there too ; moss fading in the sunshine ; lizards listening 
to the cricket in the hay-fields. Over the wall trails an 
entanglement of convolvulus, nasturtiums, and sweet-peas, 
luxuriantly falling over on the other side. 

The little girls when they pass by look up; stand on 
tip-toe ; catch a fragment of a petal, and go on their way 
delighted. 

The fountain leaps in the sunshine ; its jet cuts the Jura 
with a diamond line ; the drops keep playing their clear 
uniform melody in the freshened air. 

The mowers, the hay-makers, take a path that keeps 
close to the garden ; children are fond of loitering there. 
They come at night to see the glow-worms shining on the 
wall, while the frogs repeat their mournful note. There 
it is that gossips are carried on, hurried good-byes, fresh 
laughter, quiet cogitations,, scraps of talk, little nothings ; 
all that makes up the nature, the village, the simple coun- 
try life that one so passionately loves. 

As soon as the sun is set, the massive Jura stands out 
against it, with outline admirably pure. The sky behind 



168 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 

it then assumes that transparent, almost green tinge that 
one sees in Perugino's paintings. I do not know why that 
particular sky, that ethereal hue, that light without rays, 
that brightness almost polar in its severity, should attract 
my gaze, as if it were just there that we might look for the 
opening out of Paradise ! That immutable fortress makes 
me muse. When my thoughts travel along unbroken 
horizons, they get fainter and fainter ; melt away like mist 
before the breeze. When they meet that fortress, with 
battlements of pine ; those slopes furrowed by steep paths ; 
those openings in the forest ; the perfect line of that far 
summit, — tlien my mind wakes ; my life seems doubled. 
I do not indeed say that the ideas raised are always very 
definite ; it is rather a healthy gust of liberty and energy 
that flows down from thence, and fills my heart. 

How many sweet hours, how many blessed hours I have 
spent in this arbour I speak of ! What raptures of sun 
and song and fresh breezes, what prayers in agony, what 
grateful hymns have been mine ! And when my eyes, 
while reading the old Bible on my knee, wandered till they 
lost themselves in the distance, following the valley, taking 
in the indented ridge of the wood ; then returning to those 
peaceful walks close by, which so many loved and lost ones 
have trodden; when my glance through my leafy nest 
pierced to deepest depths of intensest azure, — oh, how I 
have thanked God ! oh, how warmly I have loved Him ! 
how keenly felt that this was true life, healthy life ! that 
it was a mercy beyond all others to be permitted to have 
one's dwelling-place here, in this full, free nature, from 
morning dawn to evening gloom ! 

There has been much singing along these old walks, 
much laughter, some weeping too. Many children's steps, 
many young girls' feet, have sounded on this gravel; many 



THE ARBOUR. 169 

fair dreams, great projects, have been nursed there. When 
the village-bell strikes the hours, when at twelve it rings 
for dinner ; in the evening, summons the labourers home ; 
there will rise out of my past, as it were, swarms of loved 
faces I shall never see more. 

My own young years rise too. See, they bring me back 
now two innocent faces; two old faces fresh as roses, — 
Nicholas and Marianne, the guardian spirits of the garden. 

They had the management of the Manor; he of the 
cellar and the bee-hives, she of the garden. Nothing 
hardly to do, only to keep their eyes open. 

They were good, plain, well-to-do villagers. He was a 
Bernese ; she belonged to our part of the country. Their 
united ages amounted to at least a hundred and thirty 
years. 

In the morning one used to see Nicholas, with a thick, 
short cap on his little round head ; breecnes of velvet, like 
those in the song ; a great waistcoat down to his knees ; 
always in shirt-sleeves, and these dazzlingly clean ; hands 
resting on two sticks, and pipe in mouth, move very slowly 
along the orchard, along the Manor. He took his time ; 
he was never in a hurry ; but he got all the same to his 
journey's end. One never heard his voice except in a 
little, contented sort of grunt, or on days of great elo- 
quence, in a certain " See, see, see" hummed inwardly. It 
was a way he had of consulting, haranguing, and approving 
himself. 

In the spring, when the bees began to swarm, he would 
establish his wife — " the Marianne" under the Arbour. 

She sat there, the charming old woman, a measure of 
dried vegetables in her apron ; with quiet hand shelling 
the red, white, striped, and spotted kidney-beans ; while 
with the corner of her eye she watched the hives. She 



170 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 

would let us children sit round her, our hands buried in 
the pretty beans. She wore a white cap with old-fashioned 
lace, much starched, and falling', stiffly down her face. 
What sort of eyes had she 1 I do not know. I only know 
that she was beautiful, with those red-rose tints, that fresh 
bow-shaped mouth you no longer see in town or country, 
and that mouth always smiling. She had, besides, two 
dimples in her cheeks, which smiled too. When we were 
seated on the gravel before her, we contemplated her, lis- 
tened to her, and that was enough in itself to make us good. 

She never scolded ; all her moral teaching was contained 
in these few words, " You must be very obedient, and then 
— pouts, you must love the good God." 

Her talk was of that peaceful kind that murmurs on 
like a brook ; now flowing through fields, now over stones ; 
kissing this flower, wetting that leaf ; while the butterflies 
poise themselves over it, and look at their own reflection. 
She pointed out bird and bee: "Look here, see there;" 
or else some venturous insect climbing a blade of grass ; 
and when some gayer bean than the others passed through 
her fingers, she would say, " Here, take it ; it is the king 
of the company." And so she went on shelling, talking ; 
the hours passed. It was all very pleasant ; peace such as 
I have not since found. 

All at once here are the bees in great agitation before 
the hive. " Go, call Nicholas ; go quick ; that 's a good 
child now !" Oh, the delight of being useful, of carrying 
a message ! Nicholas listened, took his pipe from his 
lips, tapped it on the seat to shake away the ashes. " See, 
see." Then, after a moment's reflection, " Go and get me 
the casse; that's a good child now !" 

And slowly, on his stout sticks, Nicholas would cross the 
yard, and mount the garden steps one by one. 



THE ARBOUR. 171 

The casse is a shining copper basin, very red and bright, 
which floats in the bucket of cold water that always stands 
near the door in country kitchens ; whoever is thirsty taking 
a draught therefrom. 

"Here is the casse; is all right, Father Nicholas?" 

Father Nicholas sometimes, arriving too late, would see 
the swarm all assembled in the air, set off like a flash of 
lightning for the mountain, under his very nose. For a 
moment he would remain motionless ; then — it was one of 
those rare occasions on which he expressed his sentiments 
— " Go your ways, then," he would say to the bees. " The 
good God bless you. It is not I who am going to run after 
you." 

Marianne would be much distressed. "Are they not 
bold?" she would say, in her peculiar diction; "are they 
not infidels?" 

Nicholas would shake his head; that long sentence having 
been uttered, with a merry eye and placid mouth, he would 
leisurely retake the way he came, and reach the yard, the 
bench, the pipe. When he got there, he would give a 
grunt, ouf ! let himself drop down all of a piece, half close 
his eyes, and inhale his tobacco smoke with a low murmur 
of comfort. 

More often, however, the bees, who knew their man, 
would wait for him, agitated and quivering. Nicholas 
placed his two sticks against the stand ; took the copper 
basin in one hand, an old, many-warded key in the other, 
and limping, whistling, tapping away, would move, followed 
by the swarm, to an apple-tree, where the bees clustered. 

I hear it still that rustic sound, I hear those metallic 
notes, and that little blackbird chirp ; I see the light cloud 
that hovers behind Nicholas ! 

And Marianne J In .great haste she would bring a new 



172 THE FEAR HORIZONS. 

straw-hive, well rubbed with a bit of balm which she had 
just gathered. Nicholas would take the living bunch in 
his hands, and pour it into the hive. Calm, staid, deli- 
berate always in the midst of the excited swarm. 

"Is the queen there, Father Nicholas? Did you see 
her?" 

" See, see, see." 

The hive turned, Nicholas stooped heavily, slowly 
arranged it upon four props, then Marianne surrounded 
the bees with a large-patterned carpet. Was it not well 
to protect the new swarm from the fierce heat of the sun 1 
In the evening it was carried to the stand, and throughout 
the rest of that day, and even all the next, the bees kept 
coming and going between the apple-tree and the hive. 

When the month of August came, it was time to take 
the honey, — an exciting day for good Father Nicholas. 

He covered his little head with an iron helmet, pointed, 
barred, — a genuine middle-age relic that he had found in 
some cellar or other of the manor-house. 

Still whistling, he approached the hives, lifted them, 
methodically arranged the amber combs in red earthenware 
dishes. The bees raged — that is made believe — for they 
knew that there was nothing for it with Father Nicholas. 
Hive after hive had to submit ; Nicholas, who was a just 
man, left them an ample provision for the winter. Poor 
Marianne used to be sadly frightened when he adventured 
himself thus in the midst of clouds of angry insects. 

" Must take care, Nicholas, and then (pouis) pray God 
Almighty to have a care of you too." 

But autumn has come. The trees have yielded up their 
fruit, the wild vine clothes the hive-stand with a drapery 
richer in purple and gold than any tissue woven in cities 
for monarchs' robes. The blue and silver aster-blossoms 



THE ARBOUR. 173 

sway in the breeze ; the redbreast tries to repeat his spring 
song — alas ! he has left his best notes on the hawthorn 
bushes ; he hops hither and thither in warm spots, whereon 
the November sun has power to chase the fog away. Brown 
butterflies display their velvet, purple-eyed wings on the 
year's last flowers; the bee comes there too, benumbed, 
melancholy. The red service-berries are fallen, the arbour 
has lost all its shade, In the field, behind the willows, 
smoke rises from the fire made by a hoehe herding cows. 
To-morrow they will be brought in; the white frosts 
wither the grass. 

The vintage is over, the wine ferments in the cask. 
Walnuts are cracked during the long evenings at tables 
covered with cider, cheese, and apples. The hemp hangs 
in silken plaits from the ceiling, ready for the spinning- 
wheel and the winter nights. The shorn sheep gladly seek 
the warmth of the stable. A cold, north-east wind whist- 
ling, rushes by. 

Adieu, my beautiful past ! Adieu, my memories ! 



THE HEAVENLY HOKIZONS. 




THE HEAYENLY HORIZONS. 

|E wlio elbow each other aside in the crowd of the 
world, destined perhaps never to meet again; 
we, whom opposite positions, and often opposite 
characters, so widely separate, are, nevertheless, bound to- 
gether, as in one sheaf, by the one fact — death. 

Men die : we shall die ; and it is not to teach you this 
that I open my lips ; but all and each, we carry in the 
silence of our hearts the poignant remembrance of one 
loved and lost : it is there that I find a bond of union be- 
tween you and me, such as, at any instant, may make the 
same tears start to our eyes, and blend together in one 
sentiment of grief, and also of profound love, our souls till 
then strangers to each other. 

Who is it that has not wept % "Who is it that has not 
sunk down before that couch, where reposes, without voice, 
without a look, one who loved him, and whom he loved 1 
Where is the man who has not walked solitary after walk- 
ing step with step, two together 1 

Alas ! this terrible reality of grief ! Some find it 
strange. To them the idea appears unusual, rare. To me 
it is the most actual and familiar of things ; it would seem 
to me most strange to pass a day without thinking of it. 

Besides, does any one restrain himself from loving? 
Can we say to the heart — Thou shalt not remember ? 
Would we say it ? And from that hour, when a cherished 
being who was ours, has quitted life, are there not certain 



178 THE HE A YENL Y HORIZONS. 

questionings, consuming problems, which for ever rise be- 
fore us ? 

These agitate the soul day and night. Unresolved, they 
make our torture. And woe to him who escapes by for- 
getting them ; he escapes, but by a sort of moral forfeiture 
and degradation; he has committed treason against his 
soul. Better that they should live and torture us, than 
that we should purchase ease by their oblivion. 

And now, tell me, does not a profound ennui of mortal 
life fall on you as you advance % Do you not feel your- 
self ill of this most fatal malady, the incapacity to be 
happy? 

We are for the most part fatigued wrestlers, captives 
greedy of the open air, perturbed creatures, thirsting for 
peace. 

In all this discontent there is, no doubt, some weakness 
or error to be combated. But I also find in it an ardent 
aspiration for the skies. 

There are days which rise sadly, which proceed without 
the sun, which are extinguished without a glow. The 
trees are leafless ; the fields have no verdure ; clouds hang 
their dark-gray folds on every side of the horizon. And 
our life has these pallors, these glooms. A disgust of all 
things invades the soul ; a disgust of ourselves, a hundred 
times greater than of others ; the wretchedness of a combat 
where defeat has followed on defeat ; secret shocks to our 
faith itself. Oh, in these moments, how we sigh for our 
deliverance j for the splendour of truth ; for the hallelujah 
of the skies ! 

You have known these mortal languors ; you have 
breathed these sighs; you have raised your hands to 
heaven, while the tears of an exile rolled down your cheek- 
Well, these torturing questions, I attempt to answer 



THE HEA VENLY HORIZONS. 179 

them ; these tears, I come to take from them their bitter- 
ness. 

Who am I that speak 1 It matters little. You know 
me not. Better thus; the false appearances we wear to 
each other hinders many a thought from reaching the 
heart. 

I have loved; I love. I have suffered; I shall suffer. 
Many an object of my tenderness has passed behind the 
veil. I have known those nights peopled with phantoms 
which descend upon the soul of the mourner. Kemorsft 
that comes too late ; cries uttered to an inexorable silence ; 
anguish and doubts, revolt itself, and that prostration worse 
than death — I have known them alL 

The consolations of friends might affect and move me, 
could not cure. They could not restore the dear face, the 
voice, the heart that wrapt me in its love. It was that I 
wanted ; of what avail all else 1 

Or if some word uttered brought me hope, was that 
word a truth 1 Could I lean upon it, sure that it would 
not break and pierce the heart % Are there not beautiful 
errors more cruel than the harshest truth 1 

Then I sought honestly, passionately, for light. And 
light which descends from heaven has flooded me with 
happiness. As lips burning with thirst have hung over 
the fresh pure water flowing from the rock, so have I hung 
over the Scriptures of God ; there, in long draughts I have 
quenched my thirst. 

Do not be alarmed. I am no theologian. I do not 
undertake to teach you. Let me simply take your hand- 
that hand which trembles ; which is still wet with the tears 
it has striven in vain to stop. Come, let us talk together 
of those who are gone. Come, we will together unfold our 
wings ; we will together go into the land of life. 



1 80 THE HE A VENL Y HORIZONS. 

You demand them of the vast unknown regions of space. 
Oh, you will wander there for ever, cold at heart ! Or, 
wearied, seized with terror, you will sit down immovable, 
your head covered with sackcloth and ashes, and remem- 
bering nothing but the days that were. I know where 
they are, our best beloved ! I have seen them. This is no 
dream. Neither is it ecstasy, or the revelations of a seer 
that I have to offer ; but the good promises of God. 

On my part, nothing. I am nothing, can do nothing, 
possess nothing. But, on the part of my God, much : 
assurance of life, assurance of reunion, assurance of eternal 
love. 

If this little book gives courage to some dejected pil- 
grim; if it brings under the sunbeam some countenance 
unaccustomed to the light ; if it relieves by an infallible 
hope some heart in its affliction ; if, like a fertilising dew, 
it should fall on some spirit hardened by distress, — my 
God, I shall thank Thee for one of the greatest happinesses 
of an existence in which Thou hast mingled much joy with 
many tears ! 



PAET F1EST. 




TO WHOM I SPEAK 

jOU know already, it is to those that weep. 
But I must return to this. 
One thing has always made me shudder : the 
rapidity of the last departure; the character of sudden- 
ness, joined with that of the irretrievable. 

If there were no future life, such disruptions, violent, 
absolute, would be a fearful irony on the part of God, who 
would have united us intimately with other beings, to 
break us asunder at a moment, and plunge us and plunge 
them in an abyss of darkness and oblivion. 

Do what we will, a day arrives when, without prepara- 
tion, without adieus, your loved one is gone. 

When he quitted you for a week, for a day, (if you loved 
much, for some hours,) what caresses were interchanged, 
what charges given, and how you kept in your memory his 
last precious words ! And yet you had letters, those mes- 
sengers which bring to us the thought, almost the look and 
voice of the absent. He now quits you never to return ; 
he will speak no more ; he will write no more. He whose 
heart vibrated to the least sigh of yours — oh, your most 
passionate appeals will not extract one word from him, not 
one ! He has left you ; his soul has escaped from you ; his 
mouth and yours must be mute for evermore. 



1 82 THE HE A YENL Y HORIZONS. 

The exhaustion produced by grief, the fear of giving 
language to your sentiments — how shall I describe it? — the 
terror of finding yourself face to face with death, — every- 
thing had paralysed you. And then, when he was gone, 
who should have heard them, how the cries of the heart 
burst forth ! — what ardent words ; what embraces ; what 
agony of supplication ! 

Even if you had talked together of the coming separa- 
tion, if you had gathered as a treasure every broken phrase 
that fell from his dying lips, even thus prepared, you were 
not prepared. Death held its great surprise still in reserve. 
And when all was over, you stood astonished, smitten, dis- 
mayed, on a threshold you could not pass. 

There is in death a sovereign dignity ; the solemnity of 
a life concluded. The hour has struck; earthly activity 
has ceased, — the eternal, with the irrevocable, succeeds. 

In one point of view, it is a simple and facile thing. 
Every day we see the light of a lamp extinguished. It 
was, and it is not ; a breath of air sufficed. And so one 
dies. Pain and agony, these are not death. Death is one 
simple fact. A flame, as it seemed, hovered over the brow 
of the dying, and it disappeared ; this is all It might as 
easily return. But it does not return. Here is the sole 
horror of death. 

I find in this last hour a strange sentiment of respect for 
the dead, mingled with grief ; a reverence for one who has 
gone forth on this mysterious passage. Passage full of 
mysteries which we too, however, shall one day tread. 

He who has gone forth could not be supported on his 
solitary path by any love of ours. A stronger arm was 
needful He had our prayers, yes ! and our last adieus. 
But there comes a moment when the eyes cease to see, and 
the ears to hear, when there is a silence and a halt between 



TO WHOM I SPEAK. 183 

the two regions of life. It is a moment which God, in His 
compassion, has reserved for Himself. We, with our hearts 
racked with grief, stand watching the darkness of night as 
it descends upon him. We extend our arms, we cannot 
help it, as if to retain him ; but He who wills to take, has 
taken. 

Happy, a thousand times happy, those on whose pale 
brow has descended the peace of heaven ! — God's pardon 
written in lines of light. 

Now all is finished. 

Where art thou? Thou whom I no longer possess; 
thou who liest there, inert, and near to me? Ah ! what 
passes in thee when thine eyes are fixed and thy mouth 
closed, and there is the celestial smile illuminating the 
countenance? Let me follow; let me, too, pass behind 
the veil; some splendours escape from beneath it; my 
soul burns in me, for thou art there. 

Patience ! my child ! Weep, remember, pray ! Soon 
thy hour, too, will come. 

At this time we rest in the presence of death, in one of 
its hideous aspects — destruction. 

The delight of our eyes has become an object of terror ; 
things inanimate retain their form, the body of our beloved 
falls into dissolution ; and the world pursues its course, and 
the sun shines, and fields blossom, and friends themselves, 
saddened for a little time, link themselves afresh with the 
living ; facts like these fall one after the other upon the 
heart. 

There are men whom they revolt, there are men whom 
they crush ; many forget, none are consoled. 

Thank Heaven, there are some who do not wish to be 
thus consoled, — who do not wish to be pacified by the hard 
reasoning of egotism. They do not wish to bow before 



184 THE HEAVENLY HORIZONS. 

the inevitable fact simply because it is a fact and is inevi- 
table. Neither do they wrap themselves in the indifference 
of mysticism. Their full and energetic hearts, retaining all 
their affections, love in death, — love, suffering, as before 
they loved, joyous, in life. 

It is a hateful philosophy, this submission, without a 
faith, to the tyrannies of reality. Eather revolt, rather 
clamour for the lost, rather seek him madly under the 
skies; perhaps, in our desperation, we shall meet the 
Saviour Jesus, and He will restore him to us. 

Terrible temptations await us — Christians as well as 
others — when we sit down on the borders of the tomb. It 
is there that the great enemy of our race, he who accuses 
us incessantly, is to be found ; it is there that he calum- 
niates God before our face. 

In this consists the really infernal in his character, that 
pity cannot touch him. He sees us overwhelmed with 
grief, and, at one bound, he is on us, and fixes his talons 
in our throbbing breasts ! 

" You prayed — you implored God for his recovery — you 
had faith in Him. He has said, ' Ask and I will give/ 
What has He given you ? Nature takes her undeviating 
course, all things in the world proceed according to their 
own laws, your prayer but breaks against an immutable 
fate. Your beloved one, will you ever see him 1 or with 
what form, and in what region % Will he love you there ? 
And you, in ten years, in twenty, are you sure of loving 
him?" 

Such thought is worse than death. 

But I know a state of mind still more lamentable, that 
of utmost languor. 

In despair there is life, activity ; there is an infinite in 
an infinite sorrow; in despondency there is a sombre 



TO WHOM I SPEAK. 185 

poetry on which the soul secretly feasts ; this languor is 
near to annihilation. 

Oh, well I have known her — this ghostly visitant with 
pallid face that comes and crouches near the cold hearth of 
the little chamber where a widow weeps. At her approach 
the last ember is extinguished, everything grows cold and 
dim — even memory. Then it seems that the soul, like a 
bird of night, traces the same circle again and again in a 
cavern where no light penetrates. Always the same ques- 
tions, monotonous, incessantly repeated, without effort to 
seek, without hope to find an answer. 

This is the hour for consolatory friends. 

A poor heart in its grief resembles a wounded man 
stretched along the road, a prey to the charity of all 
passers. All wish him well ; all do him ill. This turns 
him over, that raises him up ; he moans, it matters not ; 
we know better than he what he wants. 

Into an afflicted soul the crowd thinks it has a right to 
enter ; it is like a conquered city. The new comers over- 
turn everything ; carry off, bring in, derange, arrange ; — 
protestations are of no avail ; besides, they are so feeble, 
(mere sighs of pain,) that they are scarcely heard. 

Health possesses a vital energy that repels all poisons ; 
it will only assimilate what is suitable. The sick man 
yields to all, and suffers from all. 

It is a grievous spectacle these barbarous invasions, — 
well intended, most of them ; but very unseasonable, and 
very afflictive. 

Each one is for shaping anew this poor soul, and casting 
it in its own mould. Light-hearted people speak of Time? 
and how it sweeps and effaces, with the folds of its robe, 
every mournful image. Kinder spirits speak of the virtues 
of the deceased, and pronounce him happy. Peace-loving 



186 THE HEAVENLY HORIZONS. 

men, whom long regrets fatigue, remark that he was well 
nursed, has been decorously mourned, that every propriety 
has been observed, and that now the living must be thought 
of. Prosaic, narrow-minded men, finding this soul pros- 
trate on the earth, would rivet it there for ever, — would 
tear off its wings for fear it should escape from them. 
After having lost what he loved, the sufferer — last misery ! 
■ — loses himself. He loses his liberty, his individuality; 
he no longer knows himself. 

Of all distressful consolations, the worst are those which, 
coming truly from man, pretend to be derived from 
heaven. 

The heart is open to receive these pious counsels ; the 
sob is stifled, grief itself is silent ; they speak, and they 
leave you more distracted, not less miserable. 

For you had counted on God, on His sympathy, on His 
help, on some miracle of love He might still hold in re- 
serve .; and is it not the love of God that alone sheds a 
light on the mysteries of this world ? And behold ! they 
bring you a god of petty jealousies, or a god who demands 
joy of a heart transpierced, or a calculating god, who en- 
joins you to love none but him, because he alone dies not ! 

Oh, how often have I heard — dinned into the ears of 
some poor dejected creature, whose head is buried in his 
hands, who is incapable of resisting the aggressions of their 
falsehood — such words as these : " The Eternal commands 
that we love Him only ; He must reign alone ; He breaks 
all idols! 5 ' 

The poor soul would answer that his father, that his 
child, was not an idol ; that his love ascended in grateful 
prayers to Him who gave them ; but he cannot speak. A 
fear has fallen upon him. Already his God turns on him 
a menacing aspect ; his heart sinks within him. 



TO WHOM I SPEAK. 187 

In the war that you have kindled between God and his 
regret, which will be the conqueror 1 Whichever conquers, 
the soul will lose by the contest. If your God triumphs, 
it is because your soul, crushed by fear, has betrayed its 
love ; if your regret, it is because you have measured your- 
self with God, and resisted Him. 

See how careful we should be when we speak in the 
name of God ! 

God will not permit idols, but God permits strong affec- 
tions. He has made our hearts for them ; He has made 
them for the human heart. God wills that we love Him 
with all our energy, but to reign He has no need to create 
a void. If He afflicts, it is that affliction is good for us. 
The furnace is good, if the gold can be no otherwise puri* 
fied. 

Do not transfer our own little passions to God. In our 
happiness, such a God degrades us. We rather counterfeit 
a love for Him than feel it. In our misery, such a repre- 
sentation of the Divine Being revolts us or overwhelms us ; 
in either case it separates us from the true God. 

Others say to you, " Do not weep ; God does not will 
that you should weep. Kejoice! He desires a glad 
heart." 

Such men, in fact, are wearied with a prolonged sorrow. 
They cannot understand it; they have a certain vague 
terror of it. Therefore, be content. Your husband, it is 
true, is dead ; but God does all for the best. Believe in 
Him, and sing a hymn of gratitude. 

This is to kill the heart. 

God wills that we should live ! And for the very fulness 
of life He says, weep 1 Weep, but not as those who are 
without hope. 

Our bereavements must be sorrows, if the gifts of God, 



188 THE HE A VEFL Y HORIZONS. 

love and life, are joys. If God strikes us, it is that we 
should feel. Without doubt, even in the trial itself is 
found I know not what penetrating sweetness ; I have felt 
it even at that moment when I sunk prostrate under the 
hand of God. But this is not a joy that bursts out in 
cries of victory and gladness. The joy I felt, poor vacillat- 
ing light, sheltered itself in the recesses of my heart, and 
threw its pale glory before me as I knelt, and, with face 
hidden in my hands, wept on in silence. 

I know a man who wept thus. 

Job did not say that the gifts of the Eternal were a 
snare ; he did not congratulate himself that his riches had 
been taken away, and his sons destroyed. The Eternal had 
given! it was gift. The Eternal had taken away I it was 
privation. Blessed be the name of the Lord ! 

Job cast himself upon the earth. Utmost suffering, ut- 
most adoration. 

Seeing him thus, the Eternal pointed him out to Satan, 
prostrate in sorrow, prostrate in obedience : " Hast thou 
considered my servant Job, who has not his equal upon 
the earth?" 

What made Job to sin, you know it well, was not the 
malignant ulcer, the last of his calamities. Even then he 
uttered no word of reproach to God. What exasperated 
him were the bitter consolations, the inhuman counsels of 
his friends. Under this scourge, and bleeding from their 
hands, in the freshness of his wounds he raised himself, 
and was angry even with his God. 

From want of reflection, from that idleness which goes 
on repeating pious phrases without considering their mean- 
ing, perhaps, too, from the influence of a certain mysticism, 
there are men who, in the most spiritual manner, preach 
the purest egotism. 



TO WHOM I SPEAK. 189 

Health does not last ; to value it highly is to make a 
bad calculation. Eiches depart; to cling to them is to 
make a bad calculation. Glory passes ; to fix your heart 
upon it is to make a bad calculation. Science deceives ; 
to devote yourself to it is to make a bad calculation. Hus- 
band, wife, children, often betray, and always die; to 
attach yourself to them is to make a bad calculation. In 
one word, he who loves the creature calculates ill. The 
good and infallible calculation is, to love God, and to love 
Him only. God does not die, God does not deceive. God, 
moreover, is master of us all. Look well at the balance ; 
examine and decide. It is simple as the rule of three; 
peremptory as arithmetic. 

I state bluntly what is expressed, perhaps, with more 
precaution. 

Without pausing to contest an argument which seems to 
assimilate the immortal souls of others to perishable objects, 
without resting on that word creature, so disdainfully ap- 
plied to all that is not myself — let me say at once, that I 
find in this motive to detach myself from man, and give 
myself to God, something so repulsive, that my whole 
moral nature rises up against it. 

The more generous my heart, the more tenderly, the 
more closely shall I embrace a treasure of which you shew 
me the fragility. 

What ! because your affection may not be as constant as 
mine ! What ! because you will die, dear friend, shall I 
withdraw one particle of my love 1 No, a thousand times. 
My glory is to love more him who loves less ; my consola- 
tion is to love beyond death itself. 

Love is the destroyer of all egotisms — of the spiritual 
egotism as of others. He it is who enters into the last 
asylum, and breaks the last idoL And when the heart 



190 THE HEA YENL Y HORIZONS. 

is thus sanctified, it becomes prepared for an eternal 
love. 

My whole nature cries out against such reasoning. In 
the name of all moral dignity, I declare myself superior to 
your calculations. In the sublimity of moral freedom, I 
prefer misery with the integrity of my sentiments, to con- 
tentment with this mutilation ; I seize my treasures, those 
treasures of the heart you would snatch from me, I embrace, 
I maintain, I vindicate them. 

" Love thy father, and thy mother, and thy wife ; love 
them with all thy strength, but love God more. He is thy 
God, He is their God; He loves them, He loves thee. 
Never in the utmost altitude of thy affections wilt thou 
rise to the height of that love ! " Hold such language as 
this to me, and my heart feels that you speak truth ; my 
soul obeys, and at the same time takes wider sweep. 
You have subdued me, but you have aggrandised; you 
have conquered by raising me to the skies. 

Alas ! many amongst us never raise their thoughts to 
the skies. Heaven would be strange to them ; they rest 
on the earth, where they soon reconcile themselves. For 
one instant the traveller stops, looks about him, thinking 
on which side his companion has disappeared, then prepares 
himself for solitude, shoulders his pack again, and makes 
the best of it. 

After all, there is very little need to teach men egotism ; 
they have most of them taken their degree in that philo- 
sophy. 

To gather myself together, and fall in the softest place, 
when a fall is inevitable ; to throw the cargo into the sea 
if the winds are tempestuous, and to steer close to the land, 
— we are all more or less capable of this. 

Oh, you, who after ten, after twenty years of absence, 



TO WHOM I SPEAK. 191 

weep with hope, and hope in weeping, — I respect you from 
the bottom of my souL You are the true lovers, you are 
the truly happy. 

One thing seems horrible to me in my sorrow : to think 
that it may have an end; that some commonplace well- 
being may replace it, that we may learn to dispense with 
what was once our lif e ; that a little vulgar existence, with 
its repasts at stated hours, and its customary trivial plea- 
sures, shall fill the void in the heart made by the loss of 
the dearest friend — so that if he returned we should not 
know where to place him. There is something in this 
which might well draw from Ecclesiastes, one of those cries 
he uttered when proclaiming the vanity of human life : — 

Life is short, swift as a sunbeam ; let us rejoice ! The 
wind has swept away our tent ; let us build again on the 
shifting sands ! 

Do not think I am an idolater of grief ; I am not. Only 
I will not make a god of " happiness at all price." I know 
well that we must live upon the earth, and finish our 
career, but I choose to walk with the image of my absent 
friend : always we are two. 

Our levity abashes me, mine more than yours ; this in- 
curable egotism, this aridity that I find in the most secret 
places of the heart. Even there a hard determination con- 
ceals itself to make the best of whatever happens. 

God has overthrown me ; I will rise again ; we shall see 
who is the stronger. God has taken from me the child of my 
joy, or my father, or my wife ; I will do without them. I 
will subdue my calamity, not by the power of a faich which, 
grasping the loved beings, constrains them to remain, not 
by the effort of a patience which has learned to wait, but by 
a careless, practical stoicism — by a secret defiance of the 
decrees of Providence, 



192 THE HEAVENLY HORIZONS. 

I do not blame the man who has suffered much, because 
his heart lies open to new pleasures ; because the opening 
flower, or the blue waters of the lake, or Spring, or Autumn, 
revive the smile upon his lips. Nothing in all this disturbs 
me. That tender thoughts, and other loves, should kindle 
in the solitary bosom, does not revolt me. What fills me 
■with sadness is that condition of the soul in which the 
lost friend, gone joys and griefs of the past, have taken 
rank with things perfectly indifferent — in which if one 
should come to you and say, He is there ! you would find 
yourself more embarrassed than delighted. The comfort- 
ahle house built on the extinction of a great love — this I 
cannot see without a blush. 

Grief is a flower as delicate and prompt to fade as happi- 
ness. Still it does not wholly die. Like the magic rose, 
dried, and unrecognisable, a warm air breathed on it will 
suffice to renew its bloom. 

Often when the lips smile the heart is sad. Those who 
appear to forget sometimes remember better than ostenta- 
tious mourners. 

In many of us there are two men. The one is active, 
rushes hither and thither upon his business, diverts himself 
gaily and noisily ; the other, passive, dreaming, and de- 
pressed, turns to the hours that have fled. This last walks 
and weeps upon the old paths. He stops, he recalls a look, 
he pursues a phantom. Here we sat together, and hex 
voice trembled ; there, fatigued, she leant upon me ; that 
evening she was sad, and we prayed God to leave us on 
the earth together ; that other morning she was gay, and 
all the world was happy — Heaven seemed to have de- 
scended upon us. 

Because you see in such a one the eyes reanimated, 
the mind resuming its old labours, life returning to the 



TO WHOM I SPEAK. 193 

accustomed track, you say, What is finished is finished, 
and the dead are dead. 

No. 

After those first days when the separation rends the 
heart — word of terrible fidelity ! — and when the torn heart 
cannot conceal its wounds, there comes a reaction. A 
strong desire for solitude possesses the soul ; a bashful- 
ness and jealousy fall upon it; intruders are repelled; the 
chamber of death is closed ; one displays a stolid front 
that denies all, — tortures, memories. But within there 
are lights burning round the shrine ; and a casual word 
makes the heart bleed, while the lips discourse of some 
indifferent matter, or are seen to smile. 

There are secret communications with a departed loved 
one which the most compassionate listener would profane. 
At these times we are prodigal of expressions of tenderness, 
which we should have withheld, perhaps, in life. There U 
pardon asked, there are passionate avowals, utterances so 
thrilling and so sweet, that even the voice of a friend 
echoing them would jar upon us. 

Oblivion ! Oh, you deceive yourself ! Not oblivion, 
but a sanctuary, a holy of holies, over which the wings aro 
folded. 

Even the light-hearted man remembers. A voice 
ascends from the past, low and soft ; a word confided, the 
pressure of a hand in pain, some sudden recollection bids 
the tears to flow. His heart beats, he embraces in imagi- 
nation the cherished image ; she is his, she is not dead ; 
the affections of the past still survive. It is good for him 
that he suffers thus. 

Old men, chilled with age, who are said to be indifferent 
to the loss of friends, — do you believe that it is egotism, or 
some paralysis of heart, that keeps back their tears ? I do 



194 THE HE A VEFLY HORIZON'S. 

not think so. The old man sheds few tears, afflicts him- 
self little, because the old man knows that he has little 
time to regret the separation. 

When young, our years are ages ; in mature life they 
are each three hundred and sixty-five days; in old age, 
they have dwindled to a few weeks. Time is, indeed, the 
messenger with wings at his feet. Yesterday he took my 
wife, to-day my son, to-morrow he will take me. 

No desert without limits extends before the old man. 
He walks beside a river whose banks are seen to approach ; 
a diminishing stream separates them each day less and less ; 
and on the opposite bank stand wife and son, with arms 
outstretched to meet him. 

In fact, for the believer, at these last limits of existence, 
joy predominates over grief. 

We who feel ourselves weak, and are humiliated at our 
own levity, — we who would prefer a thousand times to be 
faithful and broken-hearted than to be frivolous and happy, 
r— we will not despair. The key of our treasures may be lost 
for an instant, it will be recovered. He who keeps our 
loved ones will restore them to us ; not one will be missing. 
Our heart on seeing them will resume all its pristine love. 

It is but the silence of the dead which makes us faith- 
less to their memory. The mind is weary with its flight 
through unknown regions, with following what can be 
nevw reached. It flies as a bird in the night over a land 
that has been inundated and become one watery waste. 

Why is it that you see so distinctly this traveller who 
has quitted you, this son who sails in the Indian Ocean, 
this husband trafficking in the Far West 1 Why do they 
still seem near to you, their parting counsels still heard, 
and preparations made for a return, which yet is very dis- 
tant ? It is because you know where they are. You can 



TO WHOM I SPEAK. 195 

follow the track of tlieir vessel, or the course of their cara- 
van ; you can put your finger on the map and say, They 
are there ! You trace them home, and forthwith you can 
make arrangements, even to the minutest detail, for a 
return so distinctly imagined. 

Let us do the same for our dead ; for indeed there is the 
same certainty of their return, and the same vivid recogni- 
tion of their existence. 

But those celestial regions, you say, are so vast, so vague! 
Speak to us of shores we know, and which they knew ! 
And yet, if you speak of them, our hearts break, for our 
friends never will return. There is no hope. There is 
only a dream. 

For me, I know no reality more true than this dream. 

Dream ! God prepares for you something far different. 
If He has not permitted between you and the dead that 
exchange of thoughts for which you sigh, it is because, if 
He had, death would not have been death. And then, w r e 
should have made idols of our loved ones. 

I know a courier, swift and sure, who will carry us to 
the absent — Faith. He knows the road ; have no fear, he 
will not stumble or stray. 

For us, in our sorrow, there are promises, and glad 
intelligence of our dead. God has not shut them up in 
dark prison-houses. We can turn our eyes to the land 
they inhabit. No mirage, the country exists. No poet's 
rapture, the simplest see the clearest. 

Gazing on that land, our affections will take new life, 
and the bitterness of despair will vanish ; and when we 
return to earth, we shall bring back an imperishable joy in 
our hearts ; we shall be faithful to the dead without a 
murmur of revolt against God ; we shall be grateful with- 
out egotism — submissive, not oblivious. 




OF WHOM I SPEAK. 

HERE are two great truths under the sun, — God*s 
pardon, and His justice. 

There are two peoples on the earth : a people 
of men who speak different languages, and live in different 
climates, but who have all felt the horror of sin, and the 
need of a spiritual help, and have recognised, as accom- 
plished in themselves, the work of the Holy Spirit ; and 
another people very different, scoffers, obdurate, who reject 
all the appeals, open or mysterious, of the Divine grace. 
The prayer for mercy has never fallen from their lips ; they 
laugh at the idea of pardon, they cast it from their minds. 
With this last people I do not occupy myself. 

The future of rebellious spirits presents a prospect, the 
horror of which I would on no account diminish. 

I was not made for such a subject. 

I attach myself to the glorious phalanx of the redeemed. 
I turn towards the celestial horizon ; I turn towards the 
light, to the infinite serenities, to the love without limit, 
to perfect joy. I would awaken joy. It is this we want. 

By a redeemed soul, I understand the man who has felt 
himself guilty, felt himself weak, — who has, in utmost 
humility, thrown himself before the Eternal, murmuring, 
" Have mercy on me !" 

But you who mourn departed friends, from whose mouth 
you have not received the full assurance of peace, do not 
you turn from me. If I cannot, with firm hand, point 



OF WHOM I SPEAK. Iy7 

them out to you in glory, I can shew you something mag- 
nificent—a rainbow all radiant with hope — the love of our 
Saviour, the power of prayer, the free and royal gift of an 
omnipotent grace. 

Love divine ! It has depths we cannot follow. Even 
here below, has not the mother's heart felt that there was 
an inexhaustible tenderness which surpassed her own 1 

You who hang over the little cradle, when anxiety for 
the future seizes on you, and you grow pale before enemies 
who have not yet revealed themselves, is it not true that 
one single thought will at once calm you ? God cherishes 
my child, and this my tenderness is as nothing compared 
to the love of God ! 

This husband or this mother whom I mourn, Jesus has 
loved them. Who shall unfold to me the mysteries of 
this love? who shall limit its action? He knows all, I 
nothing. When lost in grief, I can neither see nor com- 
prehend ; He sees, He loves, and He is the Saviour. 

Permit me a reminiscence from my travels in the East, 
which will never be effaced from my mind. 

We had passed Bethlehem, we had passed the Pool of 
Solomon ; we had been traversing for a long time solitary 
hills, where some wild herb alone moved to the wind, when, 
on a sudden, a dark line cut the horizon. It enlarged, it 
approached, it defined itself in battlements ; they were the 
walls of Jerusalem. Behind those walls I saw there,— 
with those eyes of the soul that look out beyond the present, 
— I saw the grand cross of Christ arise and dominate the 
city and dominate the world. My heart swelled, tears 
flowed down my cheek. 

An immense love, an unmeasured pity and pardon de 
scend from the cross upon the whole earth. Those who 
refuse it, destroy and limit it for themselves ; those who 



198 THE HE A VENL T HORIZONS. 

hunger and thirst for it, find it always equal to their aspi- 
rations. 

Whosoever calls upon God will be saved. Sublime 
words, which, descending from the throne of God, fall 
upon our lost world, and, in falling on it, spread a universal 
light! 

I recognise no formula which has power to convert men ; 
I adore a Holy Spirit which, under every sky, can tame 
the pride of man, and throw him repentant at the feet of 
his Creator. 

Jesus died for all. All do not know the only name that 
saves. Knowledge must come from without; the senti- 
ment of our guilt and misery springs from the heart. 
There is no heart beyond the circle of Divine action. 

Every soul which in its famine cries to the Eternal, finds 
the Eternal. This ineffable cry, uttered in whatsoever 
zone or epoch, traverses infinite space, and sinks in the 
heart of Jesus. 

Without doubt, where the atmosphere is thick, the light 
is feeble ; without doubt, there are such clouds as can 
obscure the day— such ignorance and hardness of the con- 
science as reduce man to the condition of the beasts ; but 
the power of God, but the love of God,- — here are my two 
lamps for this labyrinth. I am ignorant of all, God knows 
all. I think I love, but I love nothing as He loves. My 
God, who has made the heart, can always touch the heart. 

Gome, contemplate with me this Divine love in its 
plenitude, as it acts upon some poor creature in the hour 
of death. 

I would not encourage the idleness or the indecision of 
the soul. The man who has a long time refused to hear 
may lose the power of hearing. I know this well. But 
the moment also may come when the lost sheep, called in 



OF WHOM I SPEAK. 199 

vain through all the fertile valley of the earth, may answer 
at length out of the sombre valley of death. It is thus 
God seeks his simple creatures engaged in the labours of 
life, weak, ill instructed, but with a heart still loyal and 
just. 

In an instant the soul is transformed. It has compre- 
hended, it has submitted, it has prostrated itself ; God has 
raised it, it lives. A few days, a few hours suffice ; God^ 
in an instant, at one bound, can enable it to pass through 
the intermediate degrees. Frozen, it burns ; lame, it runs ; 
rebellious and pusillanimous, it is now accomplished in 
obedience and in courage. Leaying veteran Christians be- 
hind, it passes all, it has achieved all ; and, nevertheless, it, 
is itself, with its own individuality, but ripened by a single 
glance from the Divine love. 

Jesus has done this. 

What He said to the soul at that last hour I know not. 
What I have seen I believe. It is the work of God. 

And what is ours % 

An immense power is given us — a direct influence on 
the Governor of worlds — prayer. 

Shall I recall the promises made to it 1 We have our 
ears filled with them, but what they announce so surpasses 
our hope that we do not believe in them. 

Infinite goodness — poor fallen creatures that we are !•— 
finds us more sceptical than infinite justice. 

It matters not ; prayer is a power ; and if on earth it 
has a contested authority, it rules like a queen in heaven. 

God dwells far off from us, — lost, so to speak, in the 
height of the empyrean. Prayer brings Him down 
amongst us, brings Him to our hearths, and links His 
power with our efforts. 

The heart of this man repels me, but all his resistance 



200 THE HEAVENLY HORIZONS. 

disappears before a Divine tenderness. My words irritated, 
this can move and assuage. I know not how to constrain 
another soul ; there is One who leads it by invisible cords. 
Events defy me ; there is One who can bend them to His 
purpose. He, God and Father, can unite in one focus so 
many scattered beams, that the darkest soul shall be sud- 
denly inundated with light, and the coldest heart kindled 
with love. 

I do not destroy the freedom of man. 

Man can say Yes ; man can say No. 

To say No, knowing that it is the Eternal and His 
pardon that is refused — to scorn our own salvation, with 
eyes open and a sane mind — is perhaps that frightful sin 
of which it is written, Pray not for it. 

But have I seen or known such culprits, or do they 
exist for me? God excepted, does* any one know the 
hopeless? For me, I know my father, my mother, my 
friend, this or that man j God puts into my heart the cry 
of intercession ; and if I hesitate, the same God says to me, 
Believe ; all is possible to him who has faith. 

In the time of Jesus there were paralytics and the dying. 
They could not of themselves go to Christ ; their wasted 
limbs refused to carry them ; they knew not that Jesus was 
near and wished to cure them. There were even the dead 
who could not stir. Who, then, interceded ? who besought 
the Master? A father for his daughter, a centurion for 
his slave. And Jesus resuscitated the dead. 

What we want is faith. The holiness of God dismays 
us, but his charity still more. We stand bewildered, fear- 
ful, and mute. 

May I possess that sacred boldness which lies in true 
humility ! 

I will pray for you, dear friends, whom my own sins 



OF WHOM I SPEAK. 201 

and omissions have kept separated from the Saviour; I 
will pray for ycu whom my cowardice often, and some- 
times a natural sentiment of bashfulness, have prevented 
me from addressing with words of serious import ; I will 
pray for you whom all admire perhaps, and for whom 
none bends the knee. Grand and lofty minds, who tra- 
verse our sky, leaving trains of light behind — for you I 
pray! 

Ah, we know not what surprises may be in reserve for 
as in the future life ; how many we may meet there who 
knew us not, whose faces we had never seen, but whom 
our modest, ardent supplications had drawn softly towards 
Christ ! 

Have I said what I wished"? Have I communicated 
hope 1 Have I made you feel the inexpressible love of our 
Saviour, the power of prayer, the sovereign, unlimited ac- 
tions of God 1 — I know not. Perhaps emotion with me is 
stronger than argument. 

Approach, then, the pages of Holy Writ. What figures, 
sublime in their simplicity, group themselves there i Con- 
template them. Their aspect has more eloquence than these 
lips of mine. 

Is it love you would be convinced of 1 See Jesus on 
the cross. 

Is it the power of prayer 1 See women on their knees, 
and near them the dead who rise. 

Is it the free action of the Holy Spirit ? See the dying 
thief, and hear the murmur on his lips — Kemember me, 




THE AUTHORITY ON WHICH I BEST. 

REST on the authority of the Word of God. 
Not that I am about to write a treatise on 
theology. I am incapable, and should have 
more repugnance to write than you to read it. But if we 
:do not want theology, we want truth. 

On our life to come, on our dead, I find truth only in 
the Word of God ; no other book gives it me. 

What is not true, however beautiful, cannot console us. 
At that moment of separation, when so many cherished 
realities sink into the dust, could we support the approaches 
of a consolatory illusion? Beaten by the billows of an 
unspeakable misery, I can find a footing only in the truth. 
Do not extend to me a rotten branch ; in fact, I should not 
take it ; the soul in its suffering has marvellous intuitions, 
unmasking men and things. I should prefer rather to sink 
at once, than, half saved, to fall back again into the depths 
of the sea. 

One Book alone comes from God ; one alone can reveal 
to us the secrets of God. It has its silences, its mysteries ; 
it never deceives. 

Eternal life shines forth from every page of the Bible. 
At first it is a serene, diffused light, strong enough to re- 
joice the eyes; not perhaps to define each detail of the 
immense prospect. Nevertheless, as at the dawn of a fine 
day, there are peaks touched with light. The brightness 
increases, the hills are gilded, the sun penetrates the valleys. 



THE AUTHORITY OF WHICH I REST. 203 

Beautiful already, grand and peaceful in its veil of mist, 
the marvellous region grows more and more glorious with 
the growing day. Everywhere life eternal throbs and 
rises radiant around us. Promise after promise, fact after 
fact ; at first immortality seems to hover over us, at last 
descends distinct and palpable. It is no longer a vague 
happiness ; it is a positive felicity, and our hearts bound 
to meet it. 

This will be admitted by all with reference to the New 
Testament. There are who contest it with reference to the 
Old, and especially some of its earlier books. These tell 
you that they seek for the immortality of the soul in the 
writings of Moses, and do not find it. They look for it in 
the desolations of Job, and meet only with a desponding 
Materialism. They ask it of the Psalms, and the Psalms 
answer by mournful elegies on the dead, who descend into 
the regions of oblivion. They expect it from Ecclesiastes, 
and the wise Ecclesiastes celebrates the pleasures of the 
world : for, after this life, what is there 1 

Before examining into this, I throw back my thoughts 
over the earlier pages of the Divine Word. Here I do not 
find myself oppressed by low and narrow skies ; but on the 
contrary there is a feeling of the Infinite over all. The 
Eternal and the Immutable shine through the fleeting 
forms of this world. Man, whose feet are in the dust, lifts 
high his head, and breathes the air of eternity. 

That time when God took Enoch and transplanted him 
to heaven, and no one was astonished ; that time when 
Abraham spoke with God as a friend speaks to a friend , 
that time when the marvellous ladder was let down by the 
pillow of Jacob ; that time when a poor woman wandering 
on the sand of the desert with her suffering child saw 
without surprise the angel of the Lord descend from 



204 THE HEA VENLY HORIZONS. 

heaven, — that time was not a time of Materialism; be 
very sure of that. Then the princes of the East followed 
their flocks in the valleys of Judea; then they pitched 
their tents on the borders of the desert, in regions whos^ 
solitude brought God more near. In these beautiful nights 
of Arabia, clear as our days, they stood at the door of their 
tents and prayed. They prayed under the oaks at Beer- 
sheba; they prayed on the summit of mountains. And 
constantly there was a voice near them that gave answer. 
Sometimes it was a celestial messenger, with light from 
heaven on his brow, who came to the patriarch as he sat 
before his tent in the evening, reflecting on the past years 
of his life, distinguished by so many communications with 
his God. 

Think you it was necessary to teach these men that the 
soul does not die 1 Think you it was necessary to explain 
to these pilgrims, travelling incessantly to. some land of 
promise, that their days were short, and that after their 
brief duration there would commence a time that had no 
end 1 Oh, with what a sublime smile would Abraham or 
Jacob have listened to such doctors ! The soul never 
doubted ; it believed as the body breathes ; it had no need 
to discuss its faith, it held firm what it held. 

Proofs are for sceptics. 

Would you prove the magic of the night, the rich har- 
vests, the flowering meadows, to a man who, from dawn to 
twilight, and often under the moon, traverses the fields, 
who draws his scythe through the grass glittering with 
dew, who returns in the evening by the side of rivers in 
which the stars are reflected 1 But what eloquence would 
be necessary, what power of description and of reasoning, 
to bring all this, living and real, to the child of a miner, 
some poor, dwarfed creature, who in the bowels of the 



THE AUTHORITY ON WHICH I BEST. 205 

earth, a smoking lamp fastened on his head, pushes his 
truck along a dark gallery. 

To him who sees, belief is easy; the thing exists; I 
touch it ; it is mine. 

To him who sees not, you must bring faith; and he 
who names faith, names contest and conflict. Argu- 
ments are for the blind ; the loud voice of reasoning for 
the deaf. 

Do we resemble, then, the child of the miner ? Perhaps. 
Most certainly our world has for ages resembled a city 
over which an eternal fog is hanging. To such a city give 
torches, give beacons, at full day. The sun advances and 
blazes over it ; but the fog constantly interposes — nothing 
clear is seen. There, indeed, the lamp held by a hand that 
does not shake is most needful. Nothing of all this is 
wanted by him who walks abroad in the magnificence of a 
summer's day. 

Those who study even those books of the Old Testament 
most charged with Materialism, find them, as it were, inter- 
penetrated with eternal life — find the doctrine of immor- 
tality everywhere implied. It vibrates in their diction; 
constant allusions are made to it ; no one dies, but he is 
gathered to his fathers. One feels it breathe through every 
dialogue ; it is like a heavenly history running parallel with 
the earthly, written in indelible characters above, as the 
latter gradually unfolds amidst the hills and valley? of 
Palestine. God, who is educating man, is letting him draw 
his own inferences. This is a very striking feature of the 
first books of Moses, and agrees well with the positive in- 
tervention of God. Weaned from those direct relations, 
those familiar conversations, the patriarchs would have had 
greater need of written explanations and demonstrative 
reasoning. The hour came when God deprived man of 



206 THE HE A VENLY HORIZONS. 

His presence ; from that hour God bestowed on him prophets, 
into whose mouth He put a miraculous teaching. 

And even granting that man in those remote ages had 
no positive information given him on subjects upon which 
he never doubted, still, from time to time, we find his as- 
surance proclaimed in unpremeditated shouts of joy. 

Moses, on the borders of the Eed Sea, just when the 
arm of the Lord has divided the waters, and His people 
have passed over, — Moses, mentally transported to another 
passage, cries aloud, "Thou hast guided them in Thy 
strength unto Thy holy habitation. Thou shalt plant them 
in the place, Lord, which Thou hast made for Thee to 
dwell in ; in the sanctuary, Lord, which Thy hands have 
established." 

The dying Jacob, suddenly filled with joy, exclaims, " I 
have waited for Thy salvation, Lord." Then he pours 
floods of blessings on Joseph kneeling by his bed-side : 
"Blessings unto the hound of the everlasting hills." 

And what are the words whispered by the wife of 
Elkanah in the temple at Shiloh, when, her prayer granted, 
her heart overflows in thanksgiving 1 "I rejoice in Thy 
salvation. The Lord kiileth, and maketh alive ; He bring- 
eth down to the grave, and bringeth up. The Lord shall 
judge the ends of the earth." 

And Balaam, constrained by conscience against his will, 
cries, " Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my 
last end be like his." 

But I am not going to trench on theology ; and, to be 
brief, I will simply take up the charge of Materialism as 
brought against the book of Job, of the Psalms, and of 
Ecclesiastes. 

First of all, of Job. 

Who is Job 1 The most afflicted and despairing character 



THE AUTHORITY ON WHICH I REST. 207 

in all the Bible ; and Ms book is one where our heart in 
seasons of bitterness sees its every feaure faithfully re- 
flected. 

Job spoke of annihilation ; nay, he did more, he invoked 
it with all his might : " I have said to corruption, Thou 
art my father ; to the worm, Thou art my mother and my 
sister. And where is now my hope 1 As for my hope, 
who shall see it ? They shall go down to the bars of the 
pit, when our rest together is in the dust." 

Job, in his indignation, takes pleasure, as it were, in his 
Materialism, reverts to it continually, plunges deeper and 
deeper into it ; and in one of those moods known only to 
passionate natures, revels in it, and would plunge deeper 
yet if he could. 

That surprises you 1 Alas ! that does not surprise me. 
I know the dread luxury there is in rebellion — know the 
overwhelming invasion of sorrow, the madness that courts 
worse suffering still. 

" Ye call to me, ye depths ! Thou hast forsaken me, my 
God ! Thou who art strong and mighty, whose unchange- 
able bliss our cries do not disturb ; Thou takest pleasure in 
discharging all the arrows of Thy wrath on me ! Thy thun- 
derbolts at a worm ! Be it so, then ; I too will be great. 
A giant in misfortune, infinite through desolation ; I will 
go so far, I will fall so deep, that even Thine arm must 
grow greater still to strike me." 

" Will it be to strike me only ? will it not be to raise me 
up again % The excess of my grief, my very madness, the 
yawning abyss on the edge of which I walk, wilt Thou not 
have pity on me for the very sake of all these ? For Thou 
art still my God ; Thou didst love me once/' 

Yes, it is even so ; the heart has these infernal joys, 
these touching reactions; it sees the abyss, flings itself 



208 THE HEAVENLY HORIZONS. 

into it ; God, too, has a heart ; God cannot leave me to 
perish there. 

Or, to take a more familiar and milder image, have you 
never seen a little child, which its mother has for a moment 
left, burst out crying, knowing well that she is near, that 
she is listening attentively? have you never heard its 
screams, I might say its howls, of grief and rage? It 
knows that if it goes on crying thus, its mother may perhaps 
punish it, but will certainly return. 

Thus it is that in the martyrdom of human tribulation, 
we, too, weep; thus at such and such an hour we are 
ready to become sceptics, materialists, what not? God 
comes, and God once come, what happens ? 

Let me bring you back to Job. 

His friends have, one after another, told off the tale of 
their sententious harangues. Job has resisted them to the 
utmost ; Job has, with his own hand, torn off the dressings 
which rude hands have sought to lay upon his wounds. 
He has arraigned the earth, arraigned mankind, nay, in 
his delirium, he has arraigned the eternal God. "Oh, 
that I might have my request, and that God would grant 
me the thing that I long for ! Even that it would please 
God to destroy me, that He would let loose His hand, and 
cut me off !" And so his angry complaints go spreading on 
through burning page on page. 

At last comes silence. 

Then, from the midst of the whirlwind, " Who is this 
who darkens counsel by words without knowledge ? Where 
wert thou when I laid the foundations of the earth ? Who 
shut up the sea with doors ? Hast thou commanded the 
morning since thy days ? Have the gates of death been 
opened to thee ? hast thou seen the doors of the shadow of 
death ?" 



THE A UTHORITY ON WHICH I REST. 209 

Then Job, prostrate, ashamed, happy a thousandfold in 
the triumph of his God, exclaims, " Behold, I am vile. I 
have uttered that I understood not ; therefore I abhor my- 
self, and repent in dust and ashes." 

Are you still amazed at Job's Materialism % 

For my part, I thank God to have shewn me thus my 
own reflection. This is indeed myself as I am in my worst 
hours — rebellious, unbelieving, idolising my own despair ; 
and yet raised up, yet forgiven, uttering from the very hot- 
test of the furnace that cry of faith repeated from age to 
age, that glorious trumpet-burst sounded in defiance at each 
of death's apparent triumphs : " I know that my Kedeemei 
liveth. ... And though this body be destroyed, yet in my 
flesh I shall see God ; whom I shall see for myself, and 
mine eyes shall behold, and not another." 

Let us take the Psalms. 

There is everything in the Psalms. They sing of eternal 
life in accents of ineffable sweetness ; they speak of death 
as complete annihilation. Sustained by the mighty hand 
of God, the Psalmist enters triumphant into heavenly 
places ; left to himself, a prey to his adversaries, he 
grovels in the grave, and remains motionless there. 

Here again I recognise the deeply humane and sympa- 
thetic purpose which, in the Eevelation of my God, shews 
me my image to attract and draw me on : I am that man. 
But I see another and an important fact, and it is perhaps 
because this has been too much neglected, that doubts that 
shake our faith have risen up between us and the full 
beauty of the Psalms. 

This fact is as follows : 

In the Psalms habitually, as occasionally in the writings 
of the Prophets, Death is looked at from a terrestrial point 
of view. The dead are considered with reference to this 

o 



210 THE HEAVENLY HORIZONS. 

world which they have absolutely quitted. When David 
appears to speak the language of Materialism, he speaks as 
an observer of material facts only. Does this imply that 
he denies other facts 1 I do not think so. 

In his hours of dejection, the very lugubrious character 
of Death, looked at in its external aspect, is the only one 
that fills the mind of the Prophet-King. He takes up his 
position in the realm of appearances, of our present reali- 
ties j and he tells us what he descries there. 

That what he tells us is unutterably sad, who can deny 1 
But if we look only at what he is looking at, can we employ, 
even we, believers, any language but his % 

The grave is the region of silence, shall the dead praise 
the Lord 1 — they are gone — the place that knew them shall 
know them no more. The living, the living, they shall 
praise Thee, shall celebrate Thy name ! But the dead men, 
silent, senseless, soon to be turned to their dust ! 

Then again, all that is relatively true, when we consider 
the dead in connexion with earthly existence, is true with 
an absolute truth as regards the body, our own dead bodies. 

Yes, absolutely true. Till the morning of the resurrec- 
tion, our bodies will lie motionless. Never more shall our 
lips praise the Lord ; never more shall our eyes laugh in 
the light of His sun. The actions of living men, their con- 
flicts, joys, and sorrows, the clay above our heads shakes 
with these, and our bones feel no thrill 

It is this very prospect which is presented by the grave 
to our frightened glance ; it is this fact which it includes, 
this hideousness, this gloom. If it were not so, if death 
had not this appalling aspect, where would be its horror 1 

Why do we weep, we Christians who see heaven opened 1 
Why, when we are going down to those dark dwelling- 
places — we, whose eyes are lit with light from on high, we 



THE AUTHORITY ON WHICH I REST. 211 

wlio know that it is to God our souls will rise, — why do we 
feel this shudder, this anxious amazement, this transient 
gloom 1 

Ah ! the Psalmist was not wrong ; our lifeless body 
remains lifeless, useless, indifferent to all that goes on 
beneath the sky. The prophet did not deceive us ; on the 
side of earth, our side, all is over for the dead. But on 
the side of heaven, all is only about to begin, and he has 
proclaimed this glorious truth in hymns of incomparable 
beauty. 

What words console the dying, what weapons do they 
seize in their trembling hands ? — the Psalms : " Whither 
shall I go from Thy Spirit 1 If I climb up to heaven, Thou 
art there ; if I make my bed in Hades, Thou art there also." 

They drag themselves along the gloomy path alone, 
terrified : " Thou art with me ; Thy rod and Thy staff they 
comfort me." 

Their sins crowd round them numerous as the sand of 
the sea, and no more time is left : " As for our iniquities, 
Thou shalt purge them away." 

The mystery of the last breath draws near : " Thou wilt 
not leave my soul in hell ; God shall redeem my life from 
the power of the grave. He will receive me. I shall see 
the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living." 

With the Psalms, martyrs have walked with unshaken 
spirit to meet a bloody death ; with them, mothers, hus- 
bands, wives, have strengthened their heart for the inexor- 
able parting ; with them the widow, the father, the daughter 
bereaved, have been able to pursue their solitary way with- 
out repining. Poor souls, disinherited at birth of all earthly 
joy, have -while repeating the Psalms felt unspeakable 
blessings descend from heaven, and bear them up, and 
transport them to the land of happiness. 



212 THE HEAVENLY HORIZONS. 

I do not think that a Book which works such miracles 
as these can be a materialistic book. 

And now for Ecclesiastes. 

There is on earth a greater misfortune than to have to 
fight for one's life. There is a sadness more complete than 
that of bereavement, sickness, poverty, even pushed to their 
extremest limits ; there is the bitterness of a soul which 
has exhausted, fathomed everything, and in all directions 
met with nothingness. 

Then, if that soul does not — powerfully succoured from 
on high — return to Him who solves all doubts, to the throne 
whence flows the mighty river of truth, it goes wandering 
through the desert places of this world, alone in a crowd, 
a stranger alike to love and hate, disdaining all coarser 
pleasures, indifferent to highest joys, crying ever in one 
sardonic voice, "Vanity, vanity !" 

The Preacher has traversed those desert places ; he has 
lingered there ; he has measured their empty immensity ; 
their mirage has infatuated him : he has fingered the 
stunted thorns that shewed from afar like forests fresh and 
green ; his lips have been glued to the arid sand, and when 
he chanced to find some drops of water there, lo, it was 
stagnant and impure. But, arrived on the utmost limits of 
this desert, he saw the borders of the promised land indent 
the sky with a line of palms ; the scorching air grew softer : 
with his finger he pointed to the mountains, pointed to the 
green shadows, and then he was silent, for we understood 
him well. 

The Preacher is an Oriental. The East, land of light, 
with its rarified atmosphere, does not need our compendious 
explanations. A gossamer thread floating in the air suffices to 
guide the Arab through the labyrinth of thought. An apo- 



THE AUTHORITY ON WHICH I REST. 213 

logue, an enigma, are enough, let his mind have free scope; 
what he knows best is just what you have not told him. 

Our logic seems coarse to the Oriental, our demonstra- 
tions cumbersome. The moral of the tale, he perceives it 
long before you do, and if you tell it him, he smiles, casts 
on you a long look, and murmurs within himself — O 
Frank, of the babbling lips, the sluggish mind, son of the 
fog and of nights of darkness ! 

The Preacher passes in review all systems, all philoso- 
phies, all pleasures, and selects, by preference, intellectual 
pride. We see him in turn sceptical, voluptuous, ascetic, 
in love with glory, devoted to science, then philanthropical, 
and keenly sympathizing with human misery, then an 
idolater of good, and bent upon attaining it in his own 
strength. He follows each wayward impulse of his heart ; 
sinks to appalling depths, soars to sublime heights, always 
sincere, speaking with implacable precision ; and, when he 
has tried all, out of the darkness of those lowest, and, as it 
were, lost depths of that land of infidelity into which he 
sought to annihilate himself, in one second, with one bound, 
he traverses space, and falls — earnest, a little sad, and yet 
with beaming brow — before the throne of God. 

The book is full throughout of ironical sentences, which, 
one after the other, strike heavy blows at all the theories 
of human pride. Is it wisdom 1 — " What has the wise 
man more than the fool 1 Better is the sight of the eyes, 
than the wandering of the desire." 

Is it noble deeds, courage, power 1 — " Better a living dog 
than a dead lion." 

Is it sorrow for the dead ? does the heart seek to take 
possession of the skies for them by vehemence of desire ? — 
" I praised the dead which are already dead, more than the 



214 THE HEAVENLY HORIZONS. 

living which are yet alive. Yea, better is he than both 
they, which hath not yet been." 

Is it happiness 1 — " All go unto one place." 

Is it animal enjoyment % — " Take thine ease, eat, drink, 
and be merry, for a man hath no better thing under the 
sun ; this is his portion all the days of his vanity." 

Death still remains, a vague hope : " That which befall- 
eth the sons of men befalleth beasts ; even one thing bef all- 
eth them : as the one dieth, so dieth the other ; yea, they 
have all one breath : man hath no pre-eminence over a 
beast : all is vanity." 

The circle is closed, the soul in extremity has gone 
through it all, has possessed whatever science could give ; 
has known whatever experience could reveal; the only 
result, a little dust soon scattered, nothing more. 

Then comes the gist of the book, a book which, to be 
thoroughly understood, must not be read in fragments, but 
all through at once, as it was thought out ; mounting the 
same rapid steed that bears the traveller along, and com- 
pleting the cycle at the same pace. 

The key to the enigma is given us in a few sober, simple 
words, clear as the sky of Judea : " Rejoice, young man, 
in thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in 
the sight of thine eyes : but know thou, that for all these 
things God will bring thee into judgment." 

Then, in a tenderer voice : " Remember now thy Creator 
in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor 
the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no plea- 
sure in them : or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the 
golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the 
fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern : then shall 
the dust return to the earth a3 it was ; and the spirit shall 
return unto God who gave it." 



THE AUTHORITY OJV WHICH I BEST. 215 

Is there the shadow of a doubt still left ? — " Let us hear 
the conclusion of the whole matter : Fear God, and keep 
his commandments : for this is the whole duty of man. 
For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every 
secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil." 

If there be hearts oppressed with grief who have blessed 
the Lord for the book of Job, if there be heart's buffeted 
by this world's storms who have blessed Him for the 
Psalms, I believe that there are reasoning, investigating 
minds, souls not to be taken in by appearances, weary of 
the emptiness that confronts them on all sides, more sick 
with nothingness than others are of a deadly wound ; and 
I believe that it is for the book of Ecclesiastes that such 
will specially bless the Lord. 

These momentous questions have detained us. I hasten 
on to the end of the journey. 

The writings of the prophets, properly so called, are in- 
terpenetrated with the life to come ; they are illuminated 
thereby, and if, like some shadow of a cloud, chased by the 
north-east wind in a serene sky, a discouraging thought 
ever crosses the revelations of a seer, instantly the cry of 
triumph bursts forth : " Thy dead men shall live, together 
with my dead body shall they revive. Awake and sing, 
ye inhabitants of the dust, for thy dew is as the dew of 
herbs, and the earth shall no more cover her slain." 

Be it so ! you say. Nevertheless death in the Old Tes- 
tament, remains a somewhat gloomy fact. In the New 
Testament, on the contrary, it appears as a deliverance. 
There is no relapse into incredulity and alarm. Such a 
contrast as this weakens the authority of the Bible, by de- 
stroying its unity. 

For my part, I discover no opposition between the 
teaching of the prophets and that of the apostles. I see 



216 THE HE A VENL Y HORIZONS. 

different men, I see a growing light, I cannot see night on 
one side, day on the other, white here, black there. 

Before Christ, the prophets saw afar off; their hearts 
were stirred with holy hope ; at times they held it very 
fast. With Christ, and after Christ, the apostles possessed. 
The difference is great. "What those foresaw, these touched. 
The truth that a lightning flash revealed to the former, the 
latter lived in close contact with ; they were surrounded 
by it, could no more escape from it than we from the 
ambient air. The conqueror of death was their Master 
and their Brother. With their own eyes they had seen 
Him die on the cross, with their own eyes they had seen 
Him return into their midst, sit down at their table, walk 
with them by the Lake of Gennesareth : then, one April 
morning, from that very Mount of Olives they had so often 
ascended together, they saw Jesus, their Lord and their 
God, carried away on clouds to sit down in triumph at the 
Father's right hand. Tell me, is it not natural that their 
words should have other tones, their hearts possess a higher 
courage, and that death, death itself, should put on a harm- 
lessness, nay, I may say an attractiveness for them, such 
as it never could have worn to those who saw these miracu- 
lous events loom indistinct through far-off future ages? 
Again, there is a melancholy but true remark that I desire 
to make here. Christian knowledge is not always accom- 
panied with joy. Whether through ignorance or weakness 
of heart, or by one of those decrees of God of which 
eternity will reveal the blended wisdom and love, a singular 
sadness may, at the approach of death, take possession of 
a redeemed spirit. 

To be a believer, to have clear views, to love God, to 
know one's-sclf accepted, is not enough to make one wel- 
come with radiant smile the messenger of the livid wing. 



THE A UTEORITY ON WHICH I REST. 217 

Many a strong man has felt his courage sink, many a bright 
flame has grown pale. 

St Paul, he who used to say, " to die is gain ; " St Paul 
in Asia, despairing even of life, and then saved, glorifies God 
who has delivered him from so great a danger; who de- 
livers us, he adds, and in whom we trust that He will yet 
deliver. 

In the fortress at Jerusalem, this same Paul, learning 
that the Jews are laying snares for him, has the governor 
apprised of it that he may watch over his safety. At 
Cassarea, he takes the same precaution. 

In the midst of the tempest, when the ship that carries 
the Apostle to Italy, dismasted, broken by the force of the 
waves, is about to fall to pieces, forsaken by its crew, Paul 
detains the sailors, " Except these remain in the ship, you 
cannot be saved." 

At Rome, before JSTero, on the occasion of his first trial, 
he writes, " And I was delivered from the mouth of the 
lion." 

Is Paul afraid to die 1 Not so ! But, thank God ! Paul 
is a man. Paul has times when life seems to him sweet, 
his mission grand ; Paul, too, has seasons when the gloomy 
aspect of death presents itself to his mind. Were it not 
so, he would no longer be one of us : we should not under- 
stand him. 

There is another and greater than Paul, who is man also. 
He in the darkness of the garden, on the cold night pros- 
trate on the ground, and that ground wet by blood, which 
flows drop by drop from His face ; He cries in the anguish 
of His soul, His soul which is exceeding sorrowful even 
unto death, " Father, if thou wilt, remove this cup from 
me." 

What doest Thou, Saviour of mankind? Redeeming 



218 THE HEAVENLY HORIZONS. 

God, what is it Thou dost ask % For this hour Thou art 
come, for this agony, this cup; and Thou growest faint, 
Thou sayest, " if Thou wilt" 

Thus speaks the stoical exactingness of man, the coarse 
cruelty of his logic. Man looks only for the ideal in his 
fellow-man ; no flesh, no fibre, only an iron bar, straight, 
unbending, which pierces or breaks. God will have a man, 
man above all ; and thus He who is to conquer death will 
faint for a moment at its dread approach. 

Oh, very precious to me the faintness of my God ; the 
fears of His apostle, I bless them too. 

The heavenly visage of a Stephen stoned to death, 
rouses my energy ; what the Lord has done for him, He' 
may do for me also. But if the hosts of the redeemed 
presented only such lofty shapes as these, not any pallor, 
not any shadow, I should feel myself, as it were, a 
stranger in so holy a company; a secret voice would 
whisper to me, "Art thou indeed one of them?" 

Now, on the contrary, I know that one may die humbly, 
silently, perhaps timidly ; may be more sorry for the sins 
committed than thankful for the pardon given, and never- 
theless and certainly belong to Jesus. Not to all Christians 
are granted joyous and triumphant deaths. The most es- 
teemed among them, those whose great deeds have been the 
most widely spread by fame, whose voice has made many 
hearts thrill, may depart obscurely, shuddering at the vanity 
of all terrestrial glory, holding indeed the hand of Jesus ; 
but trembling the while. And at the same hour, some un- 
known woman, some little child who lends an innocent ear 
to the Divine promises, shall behold the heavens opened, 
soar away on unflagging wing, and greet their last day with 
hallelujahs. 

There are many ways of dying for Christians ; for all 



THE AUTHORITY OF WHICH I REST. 219 

there is the same eternal life. The departures differ ; the 
goal is one. There may be more or less light ; hut it 
is always the same sun. Where we see contradictions, 
there exist only the opposite sides of the same object. 
Sometimes fully illumined, sometimes half in shade, it is 
still the same believing soul ; and there is also the same 
revealing God. In the centuries anterior, as in those after 
Christ, the future life promised to believers always makes 
them glad. But the luminous hemispheres have their dark 
spots, the dark zones their bright ones ; everywhere the 
Book proclaims aloud, that the soul does not die. The 
more busy the times, the harder of hearing the ears, the 
louder becomes the voice. It is to this voice I want to 
listen. 

One last word. 

I take the Book of God in its familiar sense. I leave 
allegories to sages, knotty points to theologians. As for 
us, very little, very simple as we are, we want simple words, 
and are fain to receive them just as our Father gives them 
us. In point of fact, it is for such as we that He has 
spoken. 

The Bible contains mysteries ; God forbid that I should 
seek to lift their veil. The Bible contains deep sayings ; 
these belong to the discerning and the wise. The Bible 
uses transparent images, simple parables spoken to fisher- 
men, to shepherds ; these are for us. For us too the 
natural language, the positive meaning, the words taken for 
what they are worth. Ah. ! if the Jews had only received 
in their literal sense as they were presented to them, those 
revealing details, the poverty of Jesus, the thirty pieces of 
silver, the lots cast for the coat, the rich man's grave, and 
so many others ! 

Do not fear. We are not about to open subterranean 



220 THE HEAVENLY HORIZONS. 

galleries, or devise audacious paths to inaccessible heights; 
we fit out no balloons for the air, no lofty ships for the 
wide sea. To sit beside a tomb, to listen to what our 
Father says ; to receive it in silence, and strengthen our 
hearts thereby, — this is all, we propose nothing more. 




THE PARADISE WE FEAR. 

HAT we fear the last judgment is easily under- 
stood j that we should have a fear of Paradise 
seems unintelligible. Yet, if we look closely at 
the matter, nothing is more justifiable than such a fear. 

There are two Paradises : that of God ; that of men. 

The one, perfect in its beauty, must have for us a sove- 
reign attraction. But it is known to few, for few seek to 
know it in the pages of Holy Writ. The other, which 
men have fashioned as well as they were able, astonishes 
more than it delights. It is this which excites in the 
better order of minds a secret terror. 

No, it has nothing distinctly evil, but its utter vagueness 
fills one with dread. Plunged in a luminous mist, I feel 
the terror of a drowning man. To be drowned in light, 
may seem very beautiful ; it is still to be drowned. 

Splendour ! Immensity ! Eternity ! Grand words, grand 
things. A little definite happiness would be more to the 
purpose. 

Shall I tell you what repels me from your Paradise % It 
is that I seek an object I cannot find there — myself. 

I seek also what I cannot find there till I have found 
myself — a personal God. 

This individuality, this / myself, that I know and feel, 
by which I am what I am, and not another, I demand it 
of your heavens ; your heavens shew me spirits, intelli- 



222 THE HE A VENLY HORIZONS. 

gences, impalpable abstractions, indistinguishable from each 
other ; I turn away saddened, confounded. 

Fill the void with light, it is still a void. Where all 
personality has disappeared, where the individual life is 
extinguished or absorbed, I see nothing but an abyss. If 
from age to age, part of a column of light, I am to be 
ascending and descending this abyss, I am still lost in it. 

God has made me a living unit ; has made me me. Be- 
fore all — there above, as here below — it is this me I want ; 
without it, how can I remember, how can I see, how com- 
prehend and love my God ? 

If the golden vapours of the morning can celebrate and 
adore their God, if the purple clouds of evening can indeed 
glow with love, then let us be mists and clouds, which the 
wind impels hither and thither. But if to know God, if 
to worship Him, I must be man ; if to love Him I must 
have a living soul, I keep my humanity, I keep my indi- 
viduality, I keep them there, and more ardently than ever 
— there beyond the skies. 

At times, the Paradise which men have imagined emerges 
a little from its dazzling mist. 

I see immense desert spaces of milder light, which some- 
times remind me of those Elysian fields, whose sad inhabit- 
ants pass eternity in regretting the earth, — its cheerful sun ? 
its combats, its hatreds, its errors, its tears; sometimes 
they call to mind that melancholy region where Dante 
encountered Virgil, which was bathed in a diffuse lustre, 
that knew neither morning, nor evening, nor mid-day ; a 
region that was without grief or joy, which was traversed 
by the slow steps of pensive spirits, which strikes upon my 
heart colder than death. 

The Paradise of man is not intended, however, for death. 
They have discovered a word to express it — a word which 



TEE PARADISE WE FEAR. 223 

says all, and which says nothing — repose. Repose ! Each 
one finds in it what he can. 

One thing it certainly implies — immobility. 

Repose is immobility. It would be silence, but that 
one accords to the blessed the privilege of singing without 
pause, in the same voice, the same hallelujah. 

Repose is placid contemplation, fixed, congealed, so to 
speak, on one point, God. 

Repose is absorption in a thought which is also a senti- 
ment. A fixed star, planted in a sky of brass, would have 
as much of movement and of life. 

Repose is the oblivion of the past, effacement of every- 
thing except one present ardour, changeless, eternal. 

The creatures who repose like this are no longer men ; 
they neither think nor remember ; one eternal thought is 
tantamount to no thought at all ; without change, no life. 
Emotion, activity, the aspirations of intelligence, character, 
all have disappeared. 

Look at the Paradise of painters ; for the Paradise of 
those ages which are especially called the ages of faith, may 
be seen in their pictures. The idea of the time is written 
there. What do we see 1 A blue fluid, or ether, illumi- 
nated more and more as you penetrate its depths. An 
immense circle, or interior of a vast cone, thickly covered 
over with human heads, beatific faces planted between a 
pair of little wings ; the first row highly finished, the next 
more slightly treated, the third just indicated, the others 
growing fainter and smaller as far as the perspective is 
carried, till the winged head dwindles to a mere dot, a 
point upon a circumflex. The same expression upon all, 
the same smile, the same lips half opened by the same 
ecstasy ; and at the bottom of our cone, in a focus of light, 
the triangle with the symbolic dove ! 



224 THE HE A VENL Y HORIZONS. 

Such is the heaven which awaits us. 

Tell me, you living, you thinking creatures, you who 
love with veritable emotion, are you ravished, are you 
melted with tenderness 1 This region — desert in its multi- 
tude — do you sigh for it, do you really desire, can you put 
up one passionate prayer for it 1 It chills you, it terrifies 
you, you turn trembling towards this earth of ours, and 
cling to it like idolaters. 

Look at the heaven of Dante. If there has existed in 
the world an ardent spirit, a creative imagination, if a word 
of power has resounded in it, if, in short, there is a poetry, 
you will find it under that pen which kindles into light 
whatever it touches. 

Light, yes ! — there is such an intensity of light shed 
around us, so energetic a feeling of some luminous vibrat- 
ing atmosphere of bliss, that every verse seems to be on fire. 
There is ecstasy in the air we breathe. But these circles — 
these interminable circles ! There, for ever, in immense or- 
bits, revolve the beatific cohorts ; love, which is their light, 
gives them also their movement; the more vivid their 
affection, the more intense is their brilliancy, and the more 
rapid their revolution. Wild tournaments of spirits, rush- 
ing through the skies, and glittering with the stars of hea- 
ven, which they sweep onwards in their mad rotation — 
such is the Paradise of the poet and theologian. 

Volgeano a ruota. Hope not for other happiness. To sing 
three words through ages after ages ; to shine, to whirl, lost 
in the intoxication of light and movement — these are the 
joys, the distant reflection of which is to dry all human tears. 

In proportion as we rise from heaven to heaven, are the 
last vestiges of personality effaced; in proportion as our 
happiness augments, are the last human feelings lost in this 
celestial mechanism. 



THE PARADISE WE FEAR. 225 

These souls in bliss arrange themselves in symbolic 
figures ; agglomerate into a cross, a ladder, an eagle. The 
best placed represent the eyes of the imperial bird, the 
dazzling pupils where Trajan throws his rays by the side 
of Hezekiah and Constantine the Great. 

In a still higher and transcendent sphere there are im- 
movable souls ranged — I was going to say stuck — in rows 
round an amphitheatre, who sit bathed in light. In the 
centre, God. Three circles of equal diameter, the Father, 
the Son, and the Holy Ghost. 

The happiest of the happy fix their gaze for ever on this 
triple circle, whose brightness would extinguish the sun. 
An eternal hosanna fills the immensity with, its one in- 
variable note. This is the empyrean. 

What do you feel 1 For me, I feel terror. I cannot be 
solaced, or deceived by the grandeur of styles; and the 
tumultuous emotions which doubtless stirred the poet, in 
his poet's frenzy, do not reach me. This God is not a God, 
is not an angel, is not comparable to a man. Give me an 
avenging God, or give me blind Destiny itself. But this 
abstraction — but this infinite abyss — this hollow, bottom- 
less cone, with its three immovable circles — my soul re- 
volts — I fly from it with spread wings. I should fly even 
to the borders of Hell. And if your Paradise imprisons 
the soul in a wall of fire, I would take refuge in that hea- 
ven which is most remote from perfect bliss. 

These unnatural beatitudes oppress the heart. In fact, 
some freezing air from a Pagan Paradise has passed over 
our heaven, has withered its flowers, congealed its life. 
We remain sad in the presence of such happiness. And 
with good reason. 

A poor woman, eighty years old, pious, resigned, was 
approaching her heaven. Her time was come, she obeyed; 

P 



226 THE HE A VENL Y HORIZONS. 

but she cast more than one wandering look on this side 
the grave, on a world where there was activity and affec- 
tion. Even her poor old body, worn out and wrinkled, she 
seemed to quit with regret. 

This Paradise, how do you represent it to yourself ? 

" Ah, well ! " she answered in her simplicity ; " I sup- 
pose that, like at church, there must be chairs put all along 
the sky; one sits there, and sings psalms throughout 
eternity ! " 

Ethereal abysses, winged heads piled up close together, 
Elysian fields, pews in a greater church, — always some 
monotony, always an obliteration of self, and an immeasur- 
able ennui 

It is not thus with the true beatitudes, with that intense 
happiness, that life and warmth which fall upon us in the 
glowing promises of our Lord; it is not thus with our 
magnificent heritage of the earth ; it is not thus with tears 
that are dried away by love, with the full feeling of satis- 
fied justice, and clear recognition of the Divine government. 
Yes, we shall see God, and my soul leaps at the thought ; 
yes, we shall taste of peace that here our agitated hearts 
can never know ; yes, we shall sing marvellous hymns, and 
our bosoms palpitate with joy ; yes, we shall adore, we shall 
glorify God ; but contemplation, repose, celestial concerts, 
love and adoration, you shall be a life, not an absorption. 

But let us not anticipate ; let us return to our apocryphal 
Paradise, — Chinese screen, painted with strange figures, 
which hides from us the true country. 

To lose one's-self in the ocean of life, and to be annihi- 
lated, are the same thing ; to be absorbed in unity, and to 
vanish out of being, are to me the same thing. 

To remain impassive, the whole of my faculties gathered 
up in one, in an adoration identical in us all ; this is so 



THE PARADISE WE FEAR. 227 

opposed to everything I know, to everything I am, that my 
whole nature revolts from it. 

Kevolted, saddened, I nevertheless have submitted to 
this Paradise. 

It is so. This Paradise of Hindoos and of some Pagan 
philosophers, is also the Paradise of many Christians. It 
is the heaven of very many, because they can imagine 
nothing better. 

They do not love it, they do not desire it, they fear it ; 
nevertheless, as the only alternative, they are reduced to 
hope it. 

After having lived, to arrive at this new tribulation ! to 
plunge into this western sea ! to end in this cheerless joy, 
of which the individual has not even a distinct conscious- 
ness ! to become a number, or something less, — for there 
must be difference where there is number, — one of the 
identities fixed in space ! This is called spiritual. A 
heaven otherwise fashioned would be material to the re- 
fined intelligences of our age. 

Blessed be God ! He has otherwise ordained what shall 
be spiritual. His Paradise, I know the borders of it, and 
from these borders emerge so many genial rays of warmth 
as well as light, that my heart burns within me. In His 
Paradise I find myself perfected, sanctified, with all my 
soul, my affections, my memories. His Paradise, oh, it is 
simple as it is splendid ; more grand, yet nearer to me ; 
life in its personality, and personality in its perfect har- 
mony with God. It is my native country, not a foreign 
land ; it is the house of my Father, not the temple of an 
abstract divinity. I do not see an indistinguishable throng 
of phantoms ; I meet brothers and dear friends. Such is 
the happiness my nature craves. To such country I desire 
to emigrate ; the remotest view of it sustains my courage ; 



228 THE HE A VENLY HORIZONS. 

there I shall repose as one reposes in the house of a father. 
I should tremble to enter into your heaven; I should 
grieve if a friend entered it ; I can find no consolation, for 
them or for me, for such a happiness ! 

Is there any other Paradise that men have created? 
Have I done justice to human inventions ? 

A vague idea of transmigration of souls may be de- 
tected, more often than one would expect, in our prosaic 
age. Dreams of the East wandering into our latitudes ; 
I know not if they demand a notice, — they seem as dis- 
tressful as they are insane. 

That Paradise must indeed be disinherited of joy from 
which we are to escape by recommencing our lives. To 
possess a glorious eternity, and to abandon it ! Strange 
idea. To grovel again upon the earth ; to become a little 
child ; to struggle through the ignorance and incapacity 
and unreasonable afflictions of youth ; to engage again in 
the rude combats of maturity ; to suffer its deceptions, to 
sink under its defects, to grow old again, and die, — and 
this to gain the harbour at last, to cast anchor at last 1 
No, to resume the open seas ! Do not tell me that such 
souls come from Paradise. If any such there be, they 
were enclosed in some subterranean abode, deprived of air 
and light ; they fled from some desolate region ; they had 
never known the Paradise of God. 

Superstition (the guest of faithless as well as cowardly 
minds) creates also its Paradise, transporting there the 
vulgar passions of this earth. The legendary heaven is, on 
one side, a pale insipidity ; on the other, a burlesque home. 
Ghosts shadowy as moonlight, or troubled as the poor mor- 
tals they terrify, glide through the night ; representations 
of eternal felicity ! Did ever ghost rejoice the heart ! 
Have the inhabitants of heaven indeed this melancholy 



TEE PARADISE WE FEAR. 229 

smile, this freezing look 1 Are they thus austere, or utterly- 
impassive ; or do they retain the rancours of the past ? 

Distressful creations of the imagination ; tormenting and 
tormented, you come not from the Paradise of God. You 
know nothing of its inhabitants. Father, brother, husband, 
child, take here forms which inspire us with terror. Some- 
thing most repulsive envelops them. It is more than a 
modification, it is an absolute change. If I go where such 
creatures inhabit, what reunion can there be 1 And I also, 
I am to become a ghost, whose approach congeals the blood 
in the veins ! From a living man one is to become the 
impalpable light. 

What are the agonies of separation itself compared to 
the lying joys of these figments of a Paradise ? The bitter 
ness of tears has reached its height when we lose for ever 
a redeemed soul that loved us. And if he is lost to me in 
the serene ether of your fictitious skies, I must still mourn 
him inconsolably. If you wish to raise my soul, tell me 
that he lives, he himself, and that I shall see him again, 
and shall love him with a love submissive to my God ; tell 
me that my individuality will not die, nor my remembrance; 
tell me that life is life, and not a catalepsy, not annihilation. 

Then my brow will be uplifted towards the skies, and 
with reinvigorated step I shall pursue my pilgrimage. 
But annihilated, but reduced to the state of a luminous 
point ; if you tell me this, I sink overwhelmed. 

Up, dear brother ! Give me your hand. It is to God's 
own heaven we will walk together. 



PART SECOND, 




THE SUPREME TYPE: A EISEN SAVIOUR. 

jE have been accustomed to the careful study of 
the Saviour during the years of His earthly ex- 
istence, to the contemplation of Him in His 
present glory ; have we sufficiently meditated on the riseiv 
Jesus, during those forty days of a life at once so mys- 
terious and so simple, — led so near us, led with us, and yet 
as far removed from the conditions of our own as the 
heavens are from the earth ? 

For my own part, these few pages of Holy Writ have 
an ineffable charm for me ; I feel that they contain the 
very substance of my dearest hopes ; I am constantly re- 
verting to them, and constantly discovering some detail 
which strengthens and comforts my heart. 

Jesus is the Atoner, the Great Example, the King ; but 
Jesus is also the Conqueror of Death, and this is the cha- 
racter which best dispels my fears. 

He did not vanquish it from afar, like some god of the 
ancient Olympus ; He did not. strike down the foe by 
arrows shot from heights of the empyrean. "No ; He 
Himself came down, Himself wrestled with Death ; for a 
moment its cold hand was laid upon His heart, and then 
He arose, felled it to the ground by His glance; and 
walked our earth, as He had done before. 



232 THE HEAVENLY HORIZONS. 

Oh, how this comforts nie ! A triumph, won with more 
display, if I may use such a word, might have dazzled me ; 
I doubt whether it would have equally consoled. The 
very simplicity of the action brings it within my reach. 
The body had lain down, it rises up ; no need for this of 
angels' trumpets or a convulsed world. The will of God 
effected this; God willed, life returned. The crucified, 
the dead Jesus, is the same who walks now along the shores 
of Gennesareth, up the Mount of Olives ; He rises to his 
Father, He revisits His loved disciples ; the earth does not 
quake, the slightness of the effort put forth speaks to me 
more emphatically of the power of my God than the most 
splendid display of His sovereign authority. 

I dearly love them, these scenes of the Resurrection. 
How often I have bent over them, seeking to penetrate 
deeper into their meaning. The sleeping waters that mirror 
by night the star-filled sky, do not more faithfully reflect 
infinite depths than those few quiet, straightforward nar- 
ratives, sublime through their very simplicity. 

That which chiefly attracts me is doubtless the divine 
radiance shed around by the person of my Saviour. As I 
follow Him afar off, I seem to catch a celestial reflection ; 
I breathe the air of Paradise ; joy wraps me round like a 
garment of light ; but would the picture move me so deeply 
if I only saw therein the victory of a God 1 It is that of 
a man, too, and therefore is my soul so stirred within me. 
I contemplate with moistened eye those three that are 
taking the road to Emmaus ; my heart thrills at that one 
word, Mary ! And when, at day's earliest dawn, the gloomy 
waters of the lake are tinged with red, I cleave the waves 
with Peter, I cry aloud with triumphant voice, It is the 
Lord! 



THE SUPREME TYPE: A RISEN SAVIOUR. 233 

Man has conquered. Jesus, made like to me in Death, 
shall make me like to Him in life. 

Like ! It is in this that all my happiness consists. 

If He had restored to me life, life of any kind, my 
heart must needs have been grateful. But would it have 
bounded as it does now at the thought of the gift of a 
human resurrection, identical with the resurrection of the 
Lord? 

There are some happinesses that crush us, as we know. 
But this, of which I have fathomed the nature, fills me 
with confidence as well as with wonder. 

This risen one is not the Lord of I cannot-tell-what far 
sphere, lost in the bosom of the Infinite. He is my 
Saviour, I know Him. I see Him again as I saw Him 
before. He remembers me, He loves me ; His face, those 
hands they pierced, I see them, they are the same — no 
apparition, no metamorphosis — only a return. 

This is so sweet, that I need an absolute conviction of 
its truth. 

And then, when I have certified myself, another doubt 
instantly rises, — Will it be the same in my own case ? 

Then I seek further, hard to satisfy, fearful of a too 
ready belief; and repeated assertions tell me again and 
again that I am not deceiving myself. Such as the Lord 
is, such shall His redeemed be ; made like to Him (in all 
but His Divine attributes), bearing the image of His glori- 
fied humanity ; very brothers to the Mighty One, who first 
shook off the grasp of death. 

Are these vague, veiled promises ? No, they are clear, 
definite, written in familiar words ; their meaning easily 
apprehended, impossible to mistake. 

Have we to seek them out from book to book? No, 



234 THE HE A VENL Y HORIZONS. 

each, page presents them. This is the centre whence ray 
out all the promises ; it is alike our starting-point and our 
goal ; the whole edifice raised by the apostles rests on this 
unchangeable foundation ; Jesus risen from the dead is the 
perfect type of risen man. 

You understand now the stress I lay upon the contem- 
plation of this central figure, and my ardour in keeping 
to it. 

Jesus, Thou art indeed the same Jesus still. Ye who 
have watched Him walking through the corn-fields on 
a Sabbath day : one morning seated on the hillside, while 
the little waves beat upon the shore of Tiberias ; another, 
climbing the grassy heights which divide Bethsaida from 
Nazareth ; or again, not far from Cana, beneath the shade 
of oaks, whose branches bend beneath the honeysuckle in 
flower, in quiet retreats, where turtle-doves coo, and the 
tall hollyhock, with its brilliant clusters, blooms splendid 
but unseen ; behold Him again, for it is indeed He ! 

How often His feet have trodden your paths ! How 
often your hills and glades have heard His accents of in- 
comparable meekness, when moving slowly on in the midst 
of publicans and sinners, a few women following, He would 
cry, — " He that believeth in me hath eternal life." 

Do ye recognise Him, ye mountains, ye waters ? There 
on the shore — alone there, while Peter and John, with 
their companions, are throwing their nets into the lake 1 

"Children!" — what a loving cry! Then comes that 
question, the very simplicity of which would offend many 
if they dared entertain the feeling, which on the contrary 
makes me thrill with gratitude, because I read in it a sign 
of my Saviour's permanent humanity, — "Have ye any- 
thing to eat ? " 

Then another miracle is wrought on those waters which 



TEE SUPREME TYPE: A RISEN SAVIOUR. 235 

have witnessed so many. Another cry arises ; a cry of 
tenderness and joy, — "It is the Lord !" 

Next see them all reassembled around Jesus ! Notice 
the fish counted, the familiar meal, the touching intimacy, 
the perfect freedom of their conversation ! 

What has passed since the last supper ; for, in very deed, 
it was but yesterday that Jesus cut bread for them as He 
is doing now ; that they questioned Him in like manner, 
that the fishermen divided the waves with the same steady 
oars, and that the Son of man wandered with His dis- 
ciples on the self-same grass, which has not had time to 
wither. 

Jesus has died ; Jesus has risen again ; and as He wore 
our likeness in His death, so we shall be made like unto 
Him in the life to come. 

Jesus, come back to us from the unseen land, has forgot- 
ten nothing. 

We will not quit these dear, familiar shores. 

See, Jesus has taken Peter apart ! The Lord's face is 
serious, not severe; His lips utter a question, repeat it 
again and again, a little sadly, but so tenderly that it melts 
the soul. Peter listens, his brow grows clouded, his bent 
head bends lower still ; he is pale, overwhelmed with shame, 
till, by a supreme effort, and with an intense gaze fixed full 
upon the mild eye of his denied, his adored Master, he 
cries, — " Lord, thou knowest all things, thou knowest that 
I love thee." 

This is how Jesus remembers. 

He remembers when He waits for His disciples upon the 
borders of the lake ; He remembers when He appoints them 
to meet Him on that Mount of Olives whither He so often 
led them ; He remembers them when he fixes upon Bethany, 



236 THE HE A VENL Y HORIZONS. 

where He loved Martha, and Mary, and Lazarus, as the 
spot whence He was to part from them, and to be carried 
up into glory. 

What ! Does Jesus, then, not retain the memory of the 
past ! It were blasphemy to say so. He retains it faith- 
fully, tenderly ; as He has retained it, I too shall retain. 

Jesus loves His own. He loved them in the agony of 
death. He loves them in the triumph of the resurrection. 

The dawn whitens in the East ; in the garden of Joseph 
of Arimathea it is still dark ; a woman is standing there 
beside the sepulchre. 

Some of the apostles have been there ; they bent over 
it, saw that it was empty, and, true to their nature as men, 
logical, prompt in decision, the fact once proved, they have 
accepted it. But the woman remains there still. Why, 
she cannot tell you ; only to weep, perhaps ; to remember 
and to weep on. 

Some one draws near, probably the gardener. "Woman, 
whom seekest thou V 

" Sir," stammers out the poor woman through her tears, 
" if thou hast borne him hence, tell me where thou hast 
laid him." Mary I — Master ! 

How convey the full value of these two words ! All of 
tenderness, all of respect, the past all recovered, the eternal 
future all possessed, love imperishable, victorious for ever 
and ever ; — it is all this I find in them, and all this fraught 
with such ever-increasing freshness and pervading power, 
that night and day my thoughts might plunge and find 
unfathomed depths, that for a whole eternity I might feed 
my admiration thereon, and their immaculate beauty be in 
no way withered. 



THE SUPREME TYPE: A RISEN SAVIOUR. 237 

Again, Jesus is walking between the disciples on the 
way to Emmaus. The road is dusty, the hour late ; the 
Saviour's countenance seems changed; something unfa- 
miliar makes me for a moment hesitate, and yet, beneath 
this apparent reserve, I feel that love is vibrating. 

" Why are ye sad f 9 A thrill passes through me. Sweet 
questioning of my Saviour, I recognise you. It is thus you 
gently press all bitterness out of the heart ; to tell one's 
sorrows is to find a secret relief. Jesus interrogates His 
children ; He makes them repeat what He already knows ; 
then when the last sigh of dejection has been heaved, He 
in His turn speaks and consoles. 

But there is another detail that touches me still more. 
Jesus "made as though he would have gone farther." 
" Abide with us, for it is evening." And they constrain 
him ; and Jesus suffers Himself to be constrained ! Then 
their eyes are opened, then they utter a simultaneous cry 
— " Did not our hearts burn within us ?" 

My heart, too, is hot within me. Saviour, Thou hast 
loved ! Jesus, risen from the grave, Thou hast felt for 
Thine own a love more merciful, more strong, more en- 
tirely, perhaps, imbued with tenderness and pity than in 
the days of Thy pilgrimage. 

As Thou hast loved, my God, as Thou lovest, even so 
shall I too love ! 

Jesus rose from the tomb in His entirety. It was no 
spirit who appeared to the apostles when, gathered together 
in the evening, they discussed the visions of Mary, and 
refused them their belief. It was no phantom who 
walked in Galilee ; it was His own body, crucified, dead, 
risen again. 



238 THE HE A VENL Y HORIZONS. 

This glorious fact offends the apostles. It confounds 
their preconceived ideas ; conies, as it were, into collision 
with their habitual train of thought. 

An immortal soul, we are ready, indeed, to admit that ; 
we have not seen the soul crumble into dust. But the 
body % That ancient antipathy of ancient philosophy, that 
rag, that vile thing through which we are perishable, that 
coarse tyrant who subjects us to brutal appetites, that 
burden which our encumbered spirit can only free itself 
from by death ; that only hindrance to our attainment of 
perfection, that animal part of our nature, mere dust and 
corruption ! To revive that, to give it its share of eternity, 
more, its share of glory ! 

Such a subversion of human wisdom as this, such a 
complete overthrow of received notions, could not be 
adopted all at once. The apostles themselves, who ad- 
mitted the resurrection, who had been present at the con- 
troversy with the Sadducees, and heard the reply of Christ, 
who had seen Lazarus come forth from the tomb, even 
they, believers, would not believe this. They conceive the 
idea, but the fact stupifies them. In presence of the 
Saviour's risen body, some are terrified and others doubt. 
Jesus must place their fingers on His wounds, must eat 
before them, must cry aloud, " Touch me, and see, for a 
spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have !" be- 
fore, for very joy, blended with fear, His disciples could 
comprehend and believe. 

There is an incredulity that arises from excess of happi- 
ness ; there is a scepticism caused by the very magnificence 
of Divine transactions. Less grace would find an easier 
entrance into our narrow hearts. A God only half God, a 
limited power, a partial gift, would suit us better. But 



THE SUPREME TYPE: A RISEN SAVIOUR. 239 

then this would be but a less gloomy night, it would not 
be day. 

Jesus has risen again with His body. My dead body, 
too, shall live. My beloved ones, earth will restore your 
bodies to me. 

Finally, Jesus made Himself known to His friends. 

If the scarce-dispelled darkness, if the wonder of an 
unheard-of felicity, left Mary for a moment in suspense ; 
if the eyes of the two disciples, journeying to Emmaus, 
were for a moment holden, — how short the doubts, how 
soon succeeded by perfect certainty ! 

The apostles could not be deceived; the evidence of 
their senses affords an irrefutable and enduring testimony 
to the resurrection of their Lord. 

They doubted, indeed, the reality of the body of Jesus, 
but never His personal identity. That He was a spirit 
they did, indeed, at first imagine, but never that He was 
any other than Jesus. Whether assembled in an upper 
chamber, or alone ; in the garden, or on the mountain side, 
it is always one and the same cry that bursts from their 
lips, "The Master!" 

To have seen is enough, is all. They saw, they knew. 
They needed no other proof than just to look ; that done, 
there was no more hesitation. For a moment two of His 
disciples failed to recognise Him, but only because their 
eyes were holden. When their eyes were opened, they 
knew Him at once ; nothing more was wanted. 

In proportion as these meetings with the Saviour were 
multiplied, their doubt, nay, even their surprise, vanished, 
so that, even after a night of watching on the Lake of Gen- 
nesareth, with heavy eyes and weary ears, a simple word is 



240 THE HE A YENL Y HORIZONS, 

enough for them : " Children !" And John exclaims aloud, 
and Peter dashes in, and swims to shore. It is thus that 
I shall know again, shall be known again. 

Nevertheless, there is a change, a difference. 

Jesus, who before never left His disciples save for a 
night of solitary prayer, now leaves them often, for a 
long time, and no one knows where He is gone to. His 
absence used to be a rare occurrence, His presence has be- 
come so now. Formerly they had life in common, now 
only interviews. Doubtless, these were more numerous, 
more prolonged than we commonly suppose. A very 
marked allusion of St John's leads us to this conclusion ; 
but the risen Saviour lives under new conditions; His 
body has faculties which excite our wonder as well as our 
admiration. The obstacles which once impeded, impede 
it no longer. He comes in and goes out, the doors being 
shut. He is here, then there, and no human eye has 
marked His passage from place to place. On the morning 
of the resurrection He says to Mary, " Touch me not, for I 
am not yet ascended to my Father." He ascends, He de- 
scends to earth again, and says to Thomas, " Reach hither 
thy hand, and put it into my side." 

A deep mystery spreads its veil before our gaze. 

Until the hour of His glorious reappearing, heaven is 
become the Saviour's domain. He traverses its immeasur- 
able space, and, returning, seats Himself no longer — being 
weary — by Jacob's well. 

What though He taste indeed a piece of honeycomb, 
those touching words, " He hungered," can never more be 
said of Him. 

Still man, His humanity has put on glory, has put off 
infirmity. And thus is formed a grand, a beautiful per- 



TEE SUPREME TYPE: A RISEN SAVIOUR. 241 

sonality, which we see indeed, but cannot fully compre- 
hend. 

Be it so. What matters comprehension when I have 
faith, — have the fact before me ? 

When the resurrection-day comes, there will be no more 
obscurity. Meanwhile, strengthen thyself, my heart. 

Need we recapitulate? Are not the characteristics of 
Jesus awaked from death, self-evident, luminous, definite ? 

Man after it, as Thou wert man before ; with Thy per- 
sonal identity entire ; with Thy memories, Thy affections 
unchanged, risen in a glorious body, recognised by Thy 
people, — such art Thou, my Saviour ! 

A light has burst forth ; its radiance reveals the far per- 
spective of the world to come. Rejoice, my soul, at a 
happiness within the reach of thy faculties. Do as did 
the Apostles : Look, and thou shalt see. 



THE SLEEPLESSNESS OE THE SOUL. 




HE soul does not sleep, it lives ; it is the body 
that lies low in the slumbers of the tomb, 



Can you conceive a sleeping soul, a dreamless sleep 1 I 
find that such a state borders too closely upon annihilation, 
not to excite in man extreme repulsion. In fact, it is 
temporary annihilation. 

To cease to exist during centuries, perhaps ages ; to give 
up a life throbbing with the love of the Saviour ; to be 
frozen up after the fashion of antediluvian mammoths ; to 
exchange the activity of thought, the full employment of 
every faculty, for a suspension that amounts to total ex- 
tinction, — to speak frankly, does this prospect nil your 
ieart with joy ? Mine remains aghast at it. 

Nevertheless, if the Word of God declares this, we needs 
must submit to it. How many men, of high consideration, 
affirm that it does ! 

One word, one only, authorizes this opinion ; a very 
strong word, it is true, and often repeated, the word sleep. 

Death is sleep ; those who die fall asleep. 

What remains to be said in reply ? 

Much ; nay, all. 

The word is there, no doubt. But as long as its mean- 
ing is undefined, the question remains open. In what 
sense are we to take this word " sleep ? " How is it applied 



THE SLEEPLESSNESS OF THE SOUL. 243 

in the Scriptures % This is what it concerns us to know. 
This alone will solve the difficulty. 

This word applies to the body, not in any sense to the 
soul. 

It is the body that sleeps, absolutely unconcerned by all 
that goes on in this world or in the other. It sleeps 
heavily, no voice can rouse it, not even that dear voice whose 
lightest whisper sufficed to thrill it during the days of 
life on earth. 

You know it but too well, that implacable sleep ; you 
who have folded in a last embrace that poor body, indiffer- 
ent now to every appeal of yours. An hour ago, it saw 
your tears, your pale face ; it sees them no longer. All 
that the soul saw and heard, those angelic messengers that 
God often sends to light it on its passage ; the body, if it 
saw them at all, sees and hears no longer. It has fallen 
down inert, it remains inert, and the immortal germ that 
God has placed within it, the spark which His breath 
will re-kindle, is so deeply buried in dust and ashes, that 
no human search can ever discover it. 

Has the soul then succumbed % Is the spirit paralysed 1 
Let us draw near, and examine more closely into this. 
This dreadful word "sleep," will — thanks to Jesus who 
applied it to Himself — at once assume its own proper and 
circumscribed meaning. 

Here is the garden of Joseph; here is the sepulchre. 
The body of Jesus is resting there ! What says Holy 
"Writ ? — Jesus sleeps. 

He sleeps ! This is the language employed by Scripture. 
When Scripture speaks of Jesus dying, they say, He fell 
asleep. When they speak of His resurrection, it is as 
of awaking out of sleep. 

No distinction is here made between the body and the 



244 THE HEAVENLY HORIZONS; 

soul of the Son of God. If we take the sleep of death in 
an absolute sense, the whole nature of Jesus was, for a 
season, subjugated by I know not what lethargy. For 
three days the spirit of Jesus, the Lord of Life, remained 
paralysed, benumbed. You might have traversed the 
whole earth, its height and depth ; you might have sounded 
the immensity of heaven, nowhere would you have met 
with Jesus ! For three whole clays the Word — He who 
could say of Himself, / am — He, even He, was not. 

Does not the shudder occasioned by such a thought as 
this at once convince you of its sacrilegious absurdity 1 

Well then, the whole of revelation declares of Jesus that 
He slept. 

If it says this of Him, it may well say it of us. There 
is nothing in that which need terrify us any longer. 

The Pharisees said it when they set a watch around His 
tomb — "We remember that that deceiver said, In three 
days I will awake, arise again." 

The angels implied it when, seated by the sepulchre, 
they reassure the sorrowing women, — "Ye seek Jesus of 
Nazareth, who was crucified. He is not here, he is risen." 

Jesus said, speaking of himself : " When I am risen I 
will go before you into Galilee." 

The apostles repeat the phrase : " He rose again the 
third day." " God raised Him from the dead." Let us 
believe on Him who raised Him up. 

Dust, thou shalt return to thy dust ! I know thee, thou 
fearful sentence, thou art nothing new. Ever since the 
days of the Garden of Eden thou hast struck at our bodies ; 
our souls disown and defy thee ! The soul can no more 
sleep than it can die. 

Have you still one lingering doubt 1 The last sigh of 
the Saviour will dispel it for you. 



THE SLEEPLESSNESS OF THE SOUL. 245 

" Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit." Death 
takes his own portion, but the living spirit returns to the 
land of life. For three days the body shall remain laid in 
the tomb, treated as a holy thing, but still as a thing ; it 
shall be wrapped in a shroud, heaped about with spices ; 
sleep shall weigh the eyelids down, paralyse the limbs, but 
not the spirit. Death, thou canst not touch that ! The 
spirit will patiently await in God's presence the hour when, 
returning into the very body it left, it will raise it up on 
its feet, soar with it to the Father, re-descend to earth, sit 
down in glory. 

This is not yet all ! Listen to a decisive sentence of the 
Saviour — 

" I lay down my life to take it up again. I have power 
both to lay it down, and to take it up." 

Who is this I ; this victorious I, who is it? Who is 
the one who, being dead, commands life to return ? It is 
the soul ; the soul which can neither slumber nor sleep. 

Be at ease ; we shall sleep as Jesus slept. It is thus 
that sleep our loved ones. Their bodies, that is to say ; 
never their souls. 

This subject is one that must be thoroughly examined. 
When only indistinctly revealed, it saddens us; placed 
under a full, strong light, it causes our hearts to dance 
with joy. 

Let us return in thought to days long past ; remount 
the stream of time. 

Here we meet with Abraham. In the midst of the 
terrors of night and darkness, he has been visited by a 
vision. The Lord has spoken to him, "Thou shalt be 
gathered to thy fathers." Do these words apply to the 
Patriarch's earthly remains ? will his bones be carried to 



246 THE HEAVENLY HORIZONS. 

Padan-Aram, from the land of Canaan to the country 
whence he originally came? Not so. Abraham having 
died in a strange country, is buried in the cave of Hebron : 
there rests his body ; his dust will not be mingled with 
that of the plains of Mesopotamia. It is the soul that is 
spoken of; the soul is living still; the soul goes whither 
his fathers have gone. 

Again, God meets Isaac in the valleys of Beersheba, and 
says, " I am the God of Abraham thy father." To Jacob 
he says, "I am the God of Isaac." 

To the people of Israel, " I am the God of Jacob." 

Magnificent name ! — His name throughout all ages ! " I 
am !" — not / was. Jesus declares Him God of the living, 
not of the dead, not of the sleeping. 

David cries aloud, "Thou wilt not leave my soul in 
Hades." Prophet, he announces the resurrection of Christ ; 
believer, he expresses the fulness of his own conviction. 

And Ecclesiastes responds to him, " Then shall the dust 
return to the earth as it was, and the spirit unto God who 
gave it." 

Long before then, the Lord on Sinai came to hold con- 
verse with Moses from the midst of ten thousand of his 
saints, living saints, not sleeping. Long after, the dry 
bones gathered themselves into battle array at Ezekiel's 
voice ; but, lo ! the spirit had not yet returned into them. 

Who is that who rises down there on the plains of 
Endor, in presence of the pale and trembling king 1 A 
phantom ? No ; Samuel himself, the judge of Israel. 
" Why hast thou disquieted me 1 To-morrow thou shalt be 
with me, thou and thy sons." 

Who are they who appear on the holy mountain, talk- 
ing there with the transfigured Jesus % Two of the dead : 
Elijah, carried up body and soul to heaven ; Moses, whose 



THE SLEEPLESSNESS OF THE SOUL. 247 

"body is still hidden in some mountain-hollow on the other 
side of Jordan. Do they sleep 1 Have they slept ? No ; 
both have come from the land of life; both will return 
thither ; their faces are lit with celestial glory. 

What says Jesus to the little daughter of Jairus? 
" Maiden, arise ! " The stiffened frame lifts itself up ; 
the heart beats, the child walks, — and why 1 Her spirit 
has returned into her. 

Behold a spectacle at once magnificent and terrible ! A 
poor man, covered with sores, yields up his last suffering 
breath, and is borne by angels into Abraham's bosom. A 
rich man lives in splendour, dies, is buried, and then — I 
see him in a place of torment. This fate follows instantly 
upon his death ; for amongst the inhabitants of earth are 
numbered the brothers of the man clothed in purple and 
fine linen. 

A parable, you say. 

I know it, and know that to draw too rigorous deduc- 
tions from it, would be to pervert its meaning. Neverthe- 
less, it has a meaning, else of what use would it be ? When 
the Lord spoke it, He designed it to announce a truth, else 
He would not have done so. Was its only purport to 
teach the Jews that, after this life ended, there were feli- 
cities and torments both 1 The Jews knew that perfectly 
welL What, then, did the parable teach? The striking 
fact, that the soul cannot sleep, that it merely passes 
through death, does not linger in it, that it is immediately 
happy or unhappy, one or the other, and that it can only 
be either through being a living soul. 

Do you not at once see the moral influence of this fact \ 
A thousand years of lethargy ; that is a long period. A 
state of pain or a state of enjoyment divided from us by 
such an interval, does not affect me much with joy or fear. 



248 THE HE A VENL Y HORIZONS. 

You will tell me that a thousand years are as one day ! 
Yes, in the Lord's eyes they are so. But as for me, a 
finite creature, with my standard of time, I count the 
thousand years as they are here upon this earth where I 
am ; in spite of myself, I see them in the light of a reprieve, 
and from that moment it is no longer my soul that sleeps, 
but my conscience. 

My pen has stumbled upon that word catalepsy. 

There are indeed cataleptics. There are people whose 
senses are all suspended, who cannot see, who are consi- 
dered dead, who are dead in common parlance. Oh, but 
are they really so? Those motionless eyes follow your 
movements, those frozen ears catch all your broken words ; 
each latent faculty, preternaturally excited by the con- 
straint laid on it, has acquired increased intensity ; life is 
there, entire, vibrating, condensed. And when the blood 
begins again to circulate and the lips unclose, when that 
frightful torture of the living soul within the corpse is 
ended, it is found that never before did the heart feel so 
strongly, the mind think so intensely. And shall we still 
believe in the sleep of the soul ! 

But I return to the proofs afforded me by revelation. 

Judas, who strangled himself, went, say the Scriptures, 
to his own place. You shudder. Sleep has no such ter- 
rors. 

Paul calls us fellow-citizens with the saints. The city is 
alive, its citizens are awake, are stirring, acting ; a city of 
sleepers would be rather a necropolis than a city; the 
fellow-citizens of saints are fellow-citizens of the living. 

The same apostle exclaims : " Ye are not come unto 
Sinai, ye are come unto mount Zion, to the general assem- 
bly, ... to the spirits of just men made perfect." 

These spirits are living at this present hour in the 






THE SLEEPLESSNESS OF THE SOUL. 2id 

presence of God; for the body is dead, but the spirit is 
life. 

Do we need further argument ? 

Yes j there is still much to be said. A single word has 
given birth to the notion of the soul's temporary annihila- 
tion ; another word refutes it — departure. 

The soul departs, says the Bible. We depart from our 
homes. In order to depart, we must be alive. My home 
is not myself. My home without me remains a dead? 
deserted thing. Doors closed, windows closed, silence 
everywhere. Meanwhile I, this living I, am elsewhere, 
am animating some other dwelling with my presence. 

Then, as for the desire to depart so often expressed by 
the apostles, how can we understand it if sleep follows 
upon death 1 Such a desire would be simply unreasonable. 
What ! I want to quit this earth where I serve my God, 
where I feel, where I love ; I want to quit it that I may 
sleep. Only a despairing lassitude can prompt such a wish 
as this ; never will it be felt by a Christian in the full 
exercise of his faculties, his faith, and his affections. Such 
a one will never prefer lethargy to labour. Living, he may 
glorify his God ; living, he may save souls ; living, he may 
comfort the mourner; but paralysed, congealed, a thing 
and not a being, even the power to dream is not permitted 
him any longer. 

Paul aspires after deliverance ; he shall tell us why. 
" When at home in the body we are absent from the Lord. 
Therefore we desire to depart, that we may be present with 
the Lord." Here is his motive. St Paul would fain de- 
part, not to escape the sorrows of existence. A soldier 
does not shun the battle, that he may receive the prize. 
Besides, St Paul, in repeating it, further defines his 
thought. "We are willing rather to be absent from the 



250 THE HE A VENL Y HORIZONS. 

body, that we may be present with the Lord." Absent 
from the body ! What is it that is absent 1 My soul. 
Whither does it go 1 Into the presence of the Lord. 

I fear to dwell too long upon the subject, to weary the 
reader ; but I must needs recall that other expression of 
Paul's, when, his heart wrung with anxiety about the new 
converts whom he feared to leave, his soul possessed with 
the desire to behold Jesus, he wrote those lines so impres- 
sively true, so touchingly natural, — " I am in a strait be- 
twixt two, having a desire to depart and to be with Christ, 
which is far better ; nevertheless, to abide in the flesh is 
more needful for you." 

One irrefragable testimony remains : I have kept it to 
the last. 

Three crosses rise on Golgotha. On one of these, with 
arms outstretched, the royal title above His head, pro- 
claiming to the universe how Israel treats the Son of God, 
see Jesus die. They ridicule Him. Insults are hurled at 
Him on all sides by the angry crowd, and fall blunted on 
that brow, which grows pale beneath the Divine wrath. 
Jews, Eomans, all alike blaspheme. More bitter, more 
caustic still, fraught with more fearful irony, the sarcasm 
heard from the neighbouring cross, — "If thou be the 
Christ, save thyself and us." 

Then, before any answer can be returned, a voice is lifted 
up, plaintive but firm, humble but vibrating with hope : 
"This man has done nothing amiss; we indeed suffer 
justly - } " then that supreme prayer : " Remember me, when 
thou comest into thy kingdom." 

Jesus answers : " To-day, verily I say unto thee, to-day 
thou shalt be with me in Paradise." 

What a contrast ! Have you seized its full power % It 
is as though Jesus said — 



TEE SLEEPLESSNESS OF THE SOUL. 251 

" You thought to fall asleep ; you thought that ages 
after ages would heap their dust on your torpid spirit ; to- 
day, as soon as the brutal club of the Roman soldiers shall 
have broken thy bones, to-day thou shalt be with me. For 
me, I do not sleep. My soul enters triumphantly into its 
Idngdom ; finds its ransomed ones there, other ransomed 
spirits coming, one after the other, to rejoin it; to-day, 
not later, Paradise will open for thee ; and when, at the 
appointed day, I re-descend as Sovereign Judge, it is with 
my saints, the armies of my saints, my living not sleeping 
saints, that I shall return to earth." 

No man can number these saints. 

Do you see, too, in the pages of the Apocalypse — those 
souls hidden under the altar? Moved with holy impa- 
tience, they cry, — " How long, O Lord ! how long ! " 

Do you mark the myriads clothed in symbolic white 
garments, come out of great tribulation, and glorifying the 
Lord, while the last scenes of our earth's history are being 
accomplished ? These are the elect, happy at this present 
hour, but still aspiring, waiting for the redemption of the 
body. 

And now if, by a singular reaction having been once 
offended by the idea of a glorified body, you are amazed 
at the idea of a soul deprived of its body and yet living, of 
a soul that perceives, feels, thinks, I have to ask you, 
whether you have never dreamed; if you do not know 
what it is to traverse earth and skies in the imaginations 
of your sleep ; if it has never happened to you, as it were, 
to act, to speak, to live long years in one second of time ; 
to be your own identical, complete self, the body only 
excepted. 

And then I have to point you to St Paul caught up to 
the third heaven, whether in the body or out of the body 



252 THE HEAVENLY HORIZONS. 

he knows not. T point you to a Daniel, an Ezekiel, a St 
John ; to all the prophets in their trances and their visions, 
and I say to yon, Do not underrate any longer the power 
of God, the inalienable vitality of our own moral being. 

We are convinced ; we know now to a certainty that 
there is no state of torpor for our dead. 

Their slumber weighed like lead upon our soul It 
almost made us rebel against the decrees of the Most High, 
our bereavements became intolerable. How can we but 
regret life for those who sleep ? The most laborious exist- 
ence, the most troubled and tormented, is at least better 
than annihilation. The weary may at least love, the suffer- 
ing may glorify God j but the unconscious tenants of the 
tomb have neither heart nor tongue with which to praise 
the Lord. 

Would I wake you out of sleep, my beloved one 1 Yes. 
Must I needs rebel against the will which has snatched you 
out of existence, to cast you into a limbo, full of silence 
and of gloom 1 Yes. Do I find such a decree inexplicable, 
unjust, cruel 1 I do. 

Would I recall you from Paradise, from the very fount 
of life j would I plunge you again into our darknesses, our 
sins ; could I fail to bless through all my tears the merciful 
decree which has transported you to the seats of everlasting 
bliss % Never. 

The way opens out before us. It does not lead down to 
the darksome bowels of the earth ; it rises to the highest 
heavens. 

Let us no longer look for the living amongst the dead. 




PEKSONAL IDENTITY. 

ITHOUT personal identity, I can comprehend 
neither heaven nor earth ; we should fall into 
mere ciphers ranged in line with other ciphers. 
All relation between this life and the next would be done 
away ; we should find ourselves in presence of two worlds 
entirely unlike, two races absolutely unknown to each other. 
Not a single link to bind the heavenly to the earthly ; and 
as an inevitable consequence, divine justice giving way, and 
my interest in my own soul vanishing quite. 

Justice is just only so long as it is applied to the very 
individual who has committed the good or the bad action. 
If you take away identity, you destroy the individual. 
His conduct is no longer part of himself. It may, indeed, 
be his arm which is raised to kill, his hand which is opened 
to give ; but from the moment you do away with the in- 
dividuality of the soul, you do away with all responsibility. 
The crimes or virtues of a being thus deprived of person- 
ality, you might as well reward or punish in his neighbour 
as in himself. 

This is so incontestable, that the law does not punish 
the insane ; merely shuts them up, to prevent their injur- 
ing society. 

A crime committed in full possession of reason even, if 
it be followed by madness, does not draw down upon a 
man the sentence of the law. We do not execute a madman; 



254 THE HE A VENLT HORIZONS. 

we incarcerate him. If his reason returns, the law takes 
its course. 

But in no case can it be put in force against the virtually 



So much for justice. 

As for the interest I take in my own future, that noble 
sentiment which leads me to respect my own soul, to seek 
to perfect it, to desire its holiness and happiness ; if I am 
myself no longer, I lose that sentiment altogether. In fact, 
the fate of a Chinese is much more important to me. I 
may know that Chinese, may meet him in the life to come, 
but, from the moment that I lose my identity, find myself, 
recognise myself no longer, I become self-indifferent. 

Punishment ! no doubt it will be distressing to that 
other individual to undergo it. Happiness ! no doubt he 
will enjoy it if it be granted him ; he has my best wishes, 
my charity reaches so far. But not farther ; not to any 
effort, to any sacrifice for his sake. I repeat, I should 
exert myself more for a Chinaman. 

So much for the moral aspect. 

But there is more than this, the doctrine of imperson- 
"* ality which militates against our common sense, tears our 
heart as well. 

I have seen a father depart : I shall meet again with 
a nameless being. All our life has been blended with 
the life of a friend ; nothing will remain of our former at- 
tachment. A stranger myself, I shall take my place 
amongst strangers. We shall not even be able to speak of 
the earth, for I shall not know if there be an earth or not, 
the link between it and me will be broken. 

"What a heaven ! one would be better off in a jaiL There 
we might be uncomfortable, we should at least still be our- 
selves. 



PERSONAL IDENTITY. 255 

There is this to be said, however, it is not God who has 
broken the link we bewail. We find no trace in Scripture 
of a system, that by way of fitting man for everlasting life, 
begins by substracting from him his own self. No book 
respects individuality more than the Bible. There is even 
a marked contrast between the Divine wisdom and our 
own, in that God, who might absorb all, jealously preserves 
our moral personality ; while our terrestrial philosophers, 
despising men in their zeal for man, willingly sacrifice the 
right of the individual to the good of the great whole. 

The individual has a permanent existence in the sight 
of God ; the individual is entirely lost sight of by the great 
majority of philosophers. They have invented a final ab- 
sorption into the Divine essence ; God has left His work 
as He originally conceived it — very simple, and answering 
to our common sense. 

A common centre into which all are absorbed ; such is 
the idea struck out by human wisdom. Each one answer- 
ing for himself, there in heaven as on earth, such is the 
work of God. 

Jesus knows His sheep by name. The very angels have 
their special characters and distinctive appellations. Gab- 
riel is one, Michael another. 

In the presence of God each individual has his proper 
life. One town, one people, is not confounded with a 
neighbouring town, a neighbouring people. 

The word each, or equivalent expressions, so constantly 
applied to man when removed to his eternal abode, guards 
and maintains personality. 

He that soweth sparingly shall reap sparingly. My re- 
ward is with me, to render to every one according to his 
work. Every man's work shall be manifest. He that over- 
cometh shall be clothed in white raiment. I will not blot 



256 THE HEAVENLY HORIZONS. 

out his name from the Book of Life. Each one shall an- 
swer for himself. 

I do not know how an inalienable individuality could 
have been more definitely expressed. 

Identity ! yes, we grant you that, some will reply. But 



memory 



Yes, there are people who come and calmly tell you, — 
There will be no remembrance in heaven. 

I have said that, without personal identity, I could con- 
ceive neither heaven nor earth. Can you conceive of them 
without memory % 

As for the earth under such a condition, it is palpable 
that it would be but a madhouse. 

And heaven ? 

I am there in the celestial regions, I am there ! This 
is easily said, but who is this individual whom you affirm 
to be me ? he is a perfect stranger, for I have no recollection 
of him. Me ? oh, where, at what time, in what place ? 
While you leave me ignorant of those details I cannot pro- 
ceed a single step. 

Never mind, I must, you tell me, advance, and you lead 
me to judgment. 

To judgment ! — for what cause, and who is he that is 
judged % I hear it said — Thou hast committed such an 
action, neglected such a duty ; thou hast believed my word, 
denied it ; thou hast loved Jesus ; thou hast rejected Him. 
Truly all these charges alike are enigmas to me ; I seek 
and cannot find any answer to them. 

But this is not by any means all. According to these 
very charges, I am placed on the right hand with the 
blessed, on the left hand with the condemned. 

Oh, my whole nature rebels against such a proceeding ! 



PERSONAL IDENTITY. 257 

It is written that God shall be found just. But as for me, 
I declare Him unjust, for I can remember nothing. 

Do not talk to me any more of justice but of arbitrary 
power ! Memory once destroyed, the solemn scene of the 
last judgment is reduced to certain blows or certain favours, 
falling here and there like a hail-shower on a stormy day; 
sparing these, crushing those, according as they are impelled 
by a mysterious will to which I have no clue. 

You wished to preserve personal identity, and you take 
away memory — both fall together. I am only consciously 
myself so long as I remember. Annihilate the last vestiges 
of memory, and you annihilate the last remnant of identity 
as well. 

And, if you dispute the fact, I point you to the old man 
in his second childhood. So long as a little memory is 
left him, he remains himself; when all remembrance of 
the past is darkened, absolutely darkened, he loses his 
identity, loses it to such a degree as to believe himself 
some one else. His poor mind is like an empty house, 
passers-by go in and out, the true master has disappeared. 

Men have thought to make God's work easier, by con- 
juring memory away. They have only destroyed a prime 
element of order. 

The world to come peopled by a race without a past ; a 
future existence entirely built upon an anterior existence, 
with its very conditions only consequences of the acts, 
thoughts, and sentiments of that said anterior existence, 
and yet all memory of it done away, — why, I say it is a 
mere chaos ! Cut the ropes which hold a balloon fast to 
the ground, send it rolling through space, without ballast 
or compass, and you have an image of your world to come : 
more fitting home for the insane than the redeemed. 

Again, what a singular hypothesis ; how little worthy of 



258 THE HE A VENL Y HORIZONS. 

God this which degrades man by way of elevating him. 
Here below, he had a complete individuality, possessing 
the past by memory ; the future by hope ; he exchanges 
time for eternity, and straightway his mind grows narrower, 
his sight shorter ; the perspective of the past closes behind 
him. Truly, he was richer on earth, he was greater, he 
was at least conversant with his own life, and could measure 
the amplitude of ages past. 

If you would mutilate our moral being to make God's 
work of judgment easier, know that God refuses such 
facilities ; that He will have to do with man in his entirety. 
It is with his personal identity and his memory that man 
will have to appear before God. In the heavenly country, 
a man will assuredly encounter men whom he has known ; 
known by hearsay, known by sight, and nations of men, 
whose history he has read. 

Remember 1 says the Scripture. 

"Remember that thou, in thy lifetime, hast had thy 
good things." 

" I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat ; naked, and 
ye clothed me ; in prison, and ye visited me." And when 
the redeemed of the Lord cry out, in amazement, " When 
did we any of these things to thee ?" Jesus clears up the 
difficulty by an appeal to their past recollection, "Inas- 
much as ye did it to one of the least of these, my brethren, 
ye did it unto me." 

They understand Him. 

It is from our past that the witnesses for or against us 
are cited. ■ 

The rust of our silver and gold testifies against us ; our 
alms, fruits of our faith, plead on our behalf. There is a 
most absolute solidarity between the time that was and 
the time that shall be. 



PERSONAL IDENTITY. 259 

Thou hast confessed me before men : I will confess thee 
before God. Onesiphorus, thou hadst compassion on my 
Apostle Paul, when he was chained in a Koman dungeon : 
at the last day thou shalt find mercy at the hand of thy 
God. Martyrs, ye died with me : ye shall also reign. As 
for you who said Lord, Lord, and who would bring forward 
the evidence of your pious talk, your fine-seeming actions, 
nay, your miracles wrought in my name, remember more 
accurately : Words, outward conduct, these, indeed, you 
gave me, but not your heart. Depart from me, all ye 
workers of iniquity ! 

We know the name of those who played a part in me- 
morable events ; we know their history, can recognise their 
character. 

Men in presence of other men, town against town — Jonah 
with the inhabitants of Nineveh, the Queen of Sheba, Moses, 
— all have a clearly-defined and unalterable individuality. 
Even when cities are treated of, it is Sodom or Gomorrah, 
Tyre or Sidon, with their respective annals, their imper- 
sonal but specified character and conduct ; actual cities, in 
short, not abstractions. 

Thus memory and identity have a permanent existence, 
are the immutable basis of the future life. 

The doctrine of the soul's sleep benumbed our conscience; 
the annihilation of our identity destroys it utterly. From 
the moment that I no more believe myself responsible for 
actions, I take no further thought about them. Such or 
such a wicked act may indeed appear to me in an ugly light 
— I grant you that ; but, nevertheless, I contemplate it from 
a stand-point external to myself. I blame it in my own 
conduct, just as I might blame it in the vilest of men, 
neither more nor less. It does not interest me ; I might 
almost say it is no affair of mine ; and were it not for the 



260 THE HEAVENLY HORIZONS. 

reprobation of society, 'which I shrink from braving, — the 
fear of incurring the penalty of the law, I should give the 
reins to my every passion. 

You speak to me of development, perfectiveness. I pro- 
test to you that I am indifferent to them. Let me grow 
ever so perfect here below, it will be labour lost when I 
find myself on high. It is a mere stranger, for whom I 
care very little, that is to get there. As for taking any 
particular trouble for him, incurring sacrifices, acting or 
not acting, the thing is absurd. There is only one indi- 
vidual in whom I really take much interest : the one who 
on this our planet is called me, me myself. I will procure 
for him as long as I can, all the pleasure and satisfaction 
possible here ; after — why, hereafter is the affair of that 
other being with whom I have no connexion. 

The same order of minds, who used to deny first per- 
sonal identity, then memory, in their constant desire to 
simplify all problems, have now come to allow man to con- 
tinue himself indeed, but still they must needs mutilate 
him ; to leave him complete would be too great a compli- 
cation ; there would be no end to difficulties. Therefore 
they decree that he shall indeed remember, but only in 
part ; shall retain the memory of events, but not of per- 
sons. In heaven, say they, we shall recognise ourselves, 
not others. Here is a fine invention, indeed, for simplify- 
ing matters ! 

I have a name of my own, it matters not what. On 
earth, I had a mother, a husband, children ; I was sur- 
rounded by friends ; I lived in town or country, and near 
me lived other human beings, rich or poor, happy or un- 
happy. Towards each of these, father, child, neighbour, I 
had certain duties to perform. My very life, indeed, was 



PERSONAL IDENTITY. 261 

so intimately interwoven with theirs, we breathed so com- 
pletely one common air, that, in a moral sense, I could not 
move, nor they either, without their existence and mine 
being modified. The elements out of which our past was 
made were just our mutual relations, our reciprocal con- 
duct, our feelings for each other. My soul bears the im- 
press of their actions ; their soul has undergone the influ- 
ence of my character. My life which is about to be 
judged, is part and parcel of their lives ; that which stands 
written in the books about to be opened, is written in the 
mingled blood that flows from their veins and mine. 

Now, it is just all this that you want to do away with. 
The world is to be suppressed with the exception of my 
solitary self. 

I find myself before the throne of God; myself, it is 
true, but standing all alone there. Family, friends, neigh- 
bours, — a breath has blown them all away. I see myriads 
at my right hand and at my left, strangers all, — mere 
ciphers, such as we spoke of. I alone ; I known only to 
myself and to God, I stand upright amidst the ruins of 
the world. 

Absurd, immoral, as was the doctrine of a lost identity, 
a lost memory ! 

In point of fact, it is only the old empirical practice 
under another name j only the scalpel and the cauterising 
iron. 

Let us amputate, burn, annihilate ; nullity is more easily 
managed than life. 

Do you think so? I do not. Heaven thus peopled 
with creatures half-living, half-dead, with one half their 
consciousness paralysed, one half their affections frozen, 
looks to me but like a vast hospital and abode of suffering. 



262 THE HEAVENLY HORIZONS. 

Or if there be not suffering, it is owing to the cautery. 
To mutilate, is not to heal. I see mutilated beings. I do 
not see men there. 

Is that indeed a state of glory 1 Is that the perfection 
promised to the children of God 1 

Let us breathe the pure air of the Bible. 

A slave, Onesimus, has run away. Paul teaches him the 
way of salvation, then sends him back to his master. " For 
perhaps he therefore departed from thee for a season, that 
thou shouldest receive him for ever." A strong expression 
this — receive him for ever. But if Philemon is not to know 
Onesimus again, what meaning can it have ? 

" Ye shall see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, sit down 
in the kingdom of heaven." If you see them without re- 
cognising them, what does seeing them signify to you % 

A crown of rejoicing is prepared for the. Apostle of the 
Gentiles ; his converts are that crown. But if he does not 
know them again, what becomes of his triumph 1 " Make 
to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness, 
that when ye fail they may receive you into everlasting 
habitations." Friends, the very same whose trembling 
hands your hands have pressed; whose tears you have 
dried here below. If they are merely oc, y, or z, why they 
can no longer be friends, and Scripture testimony is over- 
thrown. 

On the morning of the Resurrection, many saints left 
their graves, and showed themselves to many. Do away 
with the recognition of individuals, and you destroy all 
proof of the miracle. 

Upon the holy mountain there appeared two men in 
glory, one on each side of the transfigured Saviour. Who 
has announced their names to Peter 1 No one ; nor had 
Peter ever seen them, yet he knows them. " Master, it is 



PERSONAL IDENTITY. 263 

good for us to be here ; let us make three tabernacles, one 
for thee, one for Moses, one for Elias" 

I will not remind you of Samuel recognised by Saul ; 
nor of Elijah, who, as he rises high in air, does not become 
unfamiliar and unknown to Elisha. "My father, my 
father !" Thus he continues to cry, till Elijah has vanished 
out of sight. I should have to quote the whole Bible. 

The first shall be last ! Why, according to your theory, 
I know neither the one nor the other — know not what this 
means. 

The patriarchs, the prophets — are they indeed monu- 
ments of the faithfulness of God ? I cannot tell, and I 
might pass a thousand years in the presence of these sub- 
lime forms without being any wiser. 

Those Colossians, those Philippians, those converts of St 
Paul ! who are they, and who is Paul ? I never heard of 
him ; let us pass on. 

" They who pierced shall see him," I hear it said of the 
Jews and the Lord Jesus. Were there Jews ] Was there 
indeed a man called Jesus % How can you suppose the 
Jews will know Him again if there be no mutual recogni- 
tion hereafter ? 

I thank Thee, my God, the river of Lethe may indeed 
flow through the Elysian fields, it does not water the 
Christian's Paradise. 

Before the sun has climbed above the horizon, all 
objects on earth are blended in one common, indistinct, 
grey hue ; you can just discern their difference of form. 
The sun rises, colours appear, outlines define themselves, 
variety and tune are born at once. Before, there was only 
a dull monotony ; now, there is harmony. 

The life to come has a similar marvel in reserve. At 



264 THE HEAVENLY HORIZONS. 

the first ray of its light, our true characters, purified but 
preserving their identity, will more fully expand, and the 
result of the infinite diversity will be a complete unity. 

Have no fear. God will open out a way we cannot 
foresee. His wisdom, His will, will have as free scope 
amidst multitudes of separate personalities, as amidst be- 
wildered myriads of beings without identity or memory, to 
whom everything is new, everything unaccountable, and 
who are appalled at the unknown region into which they 
have been plunged. 

It is I myself. So said the risen Saviour to His dis- 
ciples. I myself. 

Those with whom I have lived, with whom I have 
suffered ; you, my children, for whom I have so often 
prayed ; my friends, whose faces are so familiar to me, you 
too, whom having not seen I still have loved. It is you 
yourselves. 

Blessed be the Lord for this expression of His ! 

We were being very gradually and gently brought to the 
verge of final annihilation ; God has stretched out His 
saving hand- Once for all, and for ever, we have escaped 
from it 



THE ETERNITY OE LOVE. 

[AVE we indeed escaped 1 
Alas ! no. 

The power of God rescues our personality from 
the tomb : so much has been granted ; but it leaves our 
affections there. Individual love is to be absorbed in 
universal. It is this latter love alone of which it is written, 
" It never faileth." 

If this be so, then we have returned to the belief in 
annihilation ; for to lose ourselves is virtually to perish. 

I apply the term, destroying agent, to the flood that 
covers the whole country, and replaces its varied undu- 
lations by an immense sheet of water, which only reflects 
the sun. 

Death shall be destroyed. This wondrous sentence 
closes the prophecies relating to our " earth. But if you 
kill my affections, death triumphs ; for death has swallowed 
up the noblest portion of our being. 

If in this life only we love, (I extend the application of 
St Paul's words,) we are indeed most miserable. 

What ! I shall have given myself away ; I shall have re- 
ceived that ineffable gift, a heart ; our thoughts shall have 
become so intimately united as simultaneously to rise 
within us, by those secret affinities which we cannot ex- 
plain. I shall live in him, in her ; love shall have wrought 
the miracle of taking away all my selfishness ; a smile on 
those lips shall irradiate my heart ; a cloud of sadness on 



266 THE HEA VENLY HORIZONS. 

that brow shall have power to cast me down ; nay more, 
we shall have bent the knee together ; shall have ardently- 
sought after God ; mutually lived that noble Christian life 
with its agony of strife, its joy of victory ; and when death 
comes, we shall have to say, All is over ! 

An absorption into the ocean of universal love will be 
the end of all. The first soul I meet will be as dear to me 
or as indifferent (it is all one) as that soul; any other 
individuality will be as precious to me as that beloved 
individuality which has vanished for ever. Oh, my heart 
protests against such a doctrine as this ! I say now, as I 
said before, of memory and identity, — If I cease to love 
them whom I once loved ; if I cease to love them with a 
definite, positive, special love, — I cease to be myself ; and, 
moreover, while in this world, I am the most miserable of 
creatures. 

I am, at the same time, the most degraded. Take away 
the immortality of love ; give me children, a father, a hus- 
band to love, under this condition, that it is only for time; 
prove to me that the coffin-lid closes upon our affections as 
upon our bodies, with this difference, that earth will restore 
me my body and not my affections, — I declare to you that 
I shall love them with the love of an egotist, a materialist, 
nothing more. 

Even if you set before me a career of Christian activity, 
souls to be saved after this manner, with a sort of wholesale 
interest in which the individual goes for nothing, I declare 
to you that my work becomes lowered in character, and 
that I shall get through it mechanically; the intimate, 
personal love of souls will come to little more than the 
placing one stone upon another, having hewn it out, as well 
as one can, with the least possible trouble. 

It was not thus that St Paul felt when he exclaimed, 



THE ETERNITY OF LOVE. 267 

"Ye are my joy !" (you whom I have known, for whom I 
have suffered ;) " ye are my joy in that day." The con- 
verts made by Peter, by James ; the heathen that in future 
ages other missionaries will win over to the faith, — >all 
these I shall doubtless love ; but my crown, the delight of 
my eyes, the thrill of my heart, will be you on whose face 
my eyes have rested ; you with whom I have prayed ; you 
who wept at the thought that you should see me no more ; 
you who caused me sorrow and joy; you, my own per- 
sonal friends ! 

Who is it who has created our affections 1 God or the 
devil? Excuse so downright a question. If it be God 
who gave us these affections, and pronounced His own 
work good, will He one day suddenly change and pro- 
nounce it evil? He who dowered this earth with such 
strong and sweet attachments, will he denude heaven of 
these ? It would have been easy to have placed us from 
the first in an atmosphere of uniform and insipid affection, 
felt by and for all alike ; in an ocean without islands and 
without shore. But this is not the Divine idea ; it is the 
vain imagination of man. 

Man considers that there is grandeur, God that there is 
poverty, in monotony. 

Try, for a moment, to picture to yourself a man who has 
no preference. Behold him loving everybody with exactly 
the same sentiment, his father neither more nor less than 
all other old men, an unknown child quite as much as his 
own. As for friends, he has none ; or rather you, I, any 
stranger, the Grand Turk if you will, are all equally his 
friends in degree and kind. Why, such a man is no man ; 
he has, I can see, arms, legs, but I do not discover a heart 
in him. If he really be living man, and not an automaton, 
I say that, loving every one, he virtually loves no one, that 



268 THE HE A VENL Y HORIZONS. 

I care not for such general tenderness, and that I would 
rather be the cat of such a one than his wife or his son. 

If this earth, deprived of special and particular affections, 
seems to crumble away beneath our feet ; if it presents us 
with nothing better than isolated creatures, wandering 
about, each in his own dim personality, equally attracting, 
equally repelling all the rest; if the result be a chaotic 
vortex, cold, indefinite, sad, and unspeakably tiresome, what 
would a heaven be on the same plan % 

I know, indeed, that you make the Deity the centre of 
your heaven ; that all affections are to converge towards 
that central point and be absorbed there. This is mere 
chemical action ; no life, no soul here — annihilation again. 

And yet this is how the human mind sometimes orders 
and peoples heaven. 

Oh, how differently has God created man ! 

Ood created family ties, which man could never have 
invented ; which, in his savage state, he often does away 
with altogether ; which, in the excesses of a corrupt civi- 
lisation, he too much ignores ; which the greater part of 
our false philosophers tend to dissolve. God has strongly 
bound us together, — the man to his wife, the father to his 
child ; and when Paul seeks to depict, in one word, the 
moral degradation of the Komans in his day, he says — 
without natural affections. 

What does that ark that floats over a submerged world, 
contain % A family : father, mother, sons, and daughters. 

Why that scarlet thread on the walls of Jericho 1 It is 
there to save a family. 

What said the avenging angels to Lot, — Hast thou here 
any beside — sons, or sons-in-law, or daughters ? bring them 
out of this place, for we will destroy this place. 

To whom did the Lord send his apostle Peter ; to the 



TEE ETERNITY OF LOVE. 269 

Caesarean centurion alone ? No ; to his family, his house- 
hold ; the whole household believes, the whole family is 
baptized. 

Nothing is done by constraint. God forces no one ; yet 
it is the will of God that man should not land alone on the 
eternal shores. What appeals He addresses, what secret 
attractions He exercises ; what prayers He puts into the 
heart of mothers, of wives ; these we shall never know till 
the day of the revelation of all things. 

Yes, there are families on high, united with indissoluble 
ties, loving each other with a firmer, stronger love than 
earth ever knew. No egotism diminishes ; no infidelity 
sullies ; no ambition chokes ; no love of gold petrifies it ; 
it is constantly re-baptized in the adoration of God, and 
this adoration, far from extinguishing it, only imparts its 
own eternal glory. 

And yet, Jesus has told us that in heaven there is neither 
marriage nor giving in marriage. 

No doubt. Under new conditions, there must be new 
relations. Our terrestrial marriage has consequences which 
are incompatible with the future life. That which is 
temporary ceases; that which is immortal lasts. True 
Christian love is immortal. 

To be fully convinced of this, assume, for one moment, 
the contrary hypothesis. Picture to yourself Abraham — 
that marked, that impressive, personality — without Sarah, 
without that other personality so closely linked with his. 
Take a further step, imagine Jacob indifferent to Eachel. 
He meets her, his gentle love, the companion of his wander- 
ings, meets her in that Paradise. No more loving names, 
no more pathetic memories, no more tenderness. He meets 
her, and with unkindled eye, unmoved mind, glides by 
her. Any other soul taken at hap-hazard would inspire 



270 THE HEAVENLY HORIZON'S. 

him with equal interest. For the mother of Joseph and 
Benjamin he feels nothing more than for any other in- 
habitant of heaven. Alas ! she whom, weeping, he buried 
by the way of Ephrath ; she has remained in that grave. 
Both are dead. 

The beings whom in the heavenly regions you still call 
Rachel and Jacob, have nothing in common with those 
hearts which burn here below with a love at once so 
human and so divine. I know them no longer. Not a 
single feature remains of those characters traced by the 
inspired pen. They are for ever lost to each other, lost 
to us. 

For, in order to love no longer, mark it well, you must 
no longer remember. Love is no less intimately connected 
with memory, than memory with identity. No memory 
without love, no identity without memory, no human 
being without identity. Prevent a man from loving on 
the other side the grave, the soul that he loved on this ; 
you can only do so by destroying his past, and in destroying 
his past, you destroy the individual. 

The great poet of the middle ages better understood the 
dignity of the human soul, when he maintained intact the 
immortality of love. Even in hell itself he jealously main- 
tained it. With equal flight, driven to and fro by the same 
wild wind, sighing out one same sad complaint, pressed, 
shuddering, one against the other, the two shades once 
united by a guilty love, remained faithful still. And shall 
not chaste affections last ? while unsanctified ties thus defy 
death, shall the holy ones, into which God himself breathed 
immortal life, shall these be destroyed ? 

Have it your own way, then, methinks I hear it said. 
But with the endurance of individual affection, you intro- 
duce sorrow into heaven. Will all those you love have in- 



THE ETERNITY OF LOVE. 271 

deed a place there ? Are you very sure to meet them all 
again % A father, a child 

I fall at thy feet, my God. I fall there with a cry 
which is an act of faith. Thou wilt save them; Thou 
wilt seek them out; all obduracy will melt beneath the 
ardour of Thy Divine love. If it were not so indeed ! — 
my God, take pity on me ! I know that Thou lovest 
them ; I know Thou wilt wipe all my tears away ; I be- 
lieve from my inmost soul, that Thou wilt not wipe away 
my tears by narrowing my heart ! Thou consolest by 
giving ; Thou wilt take away nothing that is good, that 
Thou thyself hast pronounced very good. And then be- 
hold a mystery : Thou thyself, God ! from out thine 
immutable felicity dost look upon the lost. Nevertheless 
Thy love and pity endure ; Thou hast not sacrificed them 
to Thy blessedness. These are muffled harmonies, but I 
can hear their distant echo. 

What Thine omniscience does for Thee, Thy compassion 
will do for me also. 

My love will not die. Struck at throughout my whole 
journey; covered with wounds; bleeding and mutilated, 
it is not thus that I shall enter the kingdom of heaven. 
The God from whose presence despair flies away, will not 
banish it by scattering the dust of my memories to the 
winds. Indifference will not be my cure for grief. My 
God has other remedies for the suffering that springs from 
love. 

My tenderness will survive, Lord, like Thy tenderness. 
Thy love, Thy heart, my risen Saviour, guarantees me the 
vitality of my own. 

There is one other objection to the identity of our affec- 
tions. 



272 THE HEAVENLY HORIZON'S. 

u Though I have known Christ after the flesh/' says the 
Apostle Paul, " I know him so no more/' 

And the inference is this — On high our attachment will 
be so modified as virtually to be done away with. 

But a different way of loving is not by any means a 
forgetting. 

Let us look a little down to earth. 

While I lived without God and without hope in the 
world, I loved. How 1 Idolatrously, that is to say, 
selfishly, possessing, possessed, in reality seeking only 
myself in my love. This love was full of caprice ; a word 
could change it, a look turn it to torture ; tormented itself, 
it grew cruel in its turn. Often, without visible cause, it 
would diminish, grow cold, almost die out; or else the 
prosaic influence of long habit would threaten to smother it. 
A change is wrought in me ; my soul finds a Saviour, I am 
born into a new life, and the mighty hand which has raised 
me, has, at the same time, raised my affections also. 

Will you say, then, that I love no longer ? I love better 
than ever. I love with a solicitude till then unknown ; I 
love with inexpressible delicacy and refinement ; I really 
and truly no longer love myself, but love another. I 
cherish His soul ; it is His soul that I crave ; it is His 
soul I would serve ; I must have it immortal, must have 
it happy. Before, I loved for a day; now, I love for 
eternity. 

This is what God makes of our love even here below. 
Will He do the contrary, think you, in heaven 1 After 
having built up in this life, will He overthrow in the 
next? 

To sanctify, is not to destroy ; to annihilate sin, is not 
to efface human affections. 

He who vanquishes Satan, immortalizes all true love. 



THE ETERNITY OF LOVE. 273 

Although God has not seen fit to reveal to us all the 
mutual relations of the future state, yet some of the words 
that He has inspired are radiant with glory. 

Does He see us prostrate beside some tomb ? " Sorrow 
not," He says, "like those who have no hope. / will 
bring them bach; when I return they shall be with me. 
At that solemn hour you living ones shall not prevent them 
that are asleep. In a moment, at the voice of the arch- 
angel, your beloved ones will rise again; you will come 
together to meet me. Comfort ye one another with these 
words ; do not be comforted like those who have no hope." 

Have you listened attentively to these sweet and subtle 
words; have you gathered this promise to your hearts; 
fully appreciated its considerate tenderness 1 

Oh, be sure He who Himself thus loves, will never break 
our hearts ! Sadness ! yes, that is natural ; but let our 
sadness be fraught with confidence ; Jesus will bring back 
our lost ones with Him. 

A long period of waiting would distress. The living 
shall not prevent them that sleep. 

But where? How? Be not afraid; the shout of 
triumph sounds from one end of heaven to the other, and 
we shall be all assembled — all together with Jesus. 

" Together ! " exclaims St PauL " Risen together ; to- 
gether seated in heavenly places." 

See David, before prostrate in the agony of despairing 
prayer, suddenly arise, wash his face, anoint his head. 
What doest thou, king ? Thy son is dead ; he will not 
return, and yet thy tears are stanched. 

" He will not return to me, but / shall go to him." 

But I desire to contemplate my Saviour in the exercise 
of His most Divine prerogative; at the moment when, 
with His sovereign hand, He loosed the bands of death. 



274 THE HE A VENL T HORIZONS 

His preaching demanded the support of miracles ; but 
what His heart demanded was that He should wipe away 
our tears. 

When at the gates of the city of Nain, He stops the 
corpse on its way to the grave; was it to display His 
power that He did this ? The procession comes on, a sor- 
rowing woman accompanies it — a widow. Jesus sees her, 
is moved with compassion; "Woman, weep not!" His 
hand has touched the bier: "Young man, arise!" And 
He gave him to his mother. 

He gave in like manner the servant to the Centurion, 
his little daughter to Jairus. 

" Trouble not the Master," said the servant ; " thy child 
is dead." 

And others thought, perhaps, What is dead is dead ; the 
flower has bloomed and faded ; thou wilt see her no more 
on earth or in heaven. In heaven, a mere fraction of the 
great whole, a unit midst myriads of similar units, thy 
daughter will be thy daughter no longer. Therefore, make 
ap thy mind to it. Forget ! 

Not so Jesus. "Maiden, arise!" and He gave her to 
her father. 

Let me seat myself awhile beside Mary, while Martha, 
who has just run in, is saying to her, " The Master is come, 
and calleth for thee." 

" My brother is dead. By this time the prey of corrup- 
tion." Such are the terrors under which our faith falters. 

Then Jesus breaks in — " Said I not unto thee, that, if 
thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God V* 

And Jesus was troubled in Himself, and Jesus wept. 

"See how He loved him !" cried the Jews. They are 
not deceived, those eye-witnesses. Where over-strained, 
superfine intellects can only see a vague humanitarianism, 



THE ETERNITY OF LOVE. 275 

the Jews recognise the presence of a strong affection. How 
He loved him ! And He who loved Lazarus said, " Take 
ye away the stone ;" then cried, "Lazarus, come forth !" 

It is no person hitherto unknown who comes forth at 
this call. Jesus has not evoked a new and different being, 
a stranger, indifferent to those around. No. It is Lazarus 
who arises; the Lazarus whom Martha and Mary love, 
whom Jesus loves, and He gave him to his sisters. 

I told you before that it was the very joy of this that 
hindered our faith. The apostles gathered together on the 
morning of the resurrection, were like us, they believed not 
for joy. 

We have been wont to descend into the depths of sorrow, 
but hitherto we have never been equally flooded by bliss. 
Eternity reserves this experience for us. 

Do our beloved dead see us still, take part in our 
struggles, lend us help 1 This is a mystery. 

The things that are revealed alone belong to us. I find 
them sufficiently beautiful to satisfy me. 

By faith, women received their dead again ! I thank 
Thee, my God. 

Fear not, only believe. I will believe, Thou wilt not de- 
ceive me. 

"A general assembly" "caught up together with them," 
" together with the Lord." I will constantly repeat to my- 
self these words, all vibrating with hope. 

My heart salutes you, ye eternal shores ! Amidst your 
radiance I recognise my beloved ones. The dying eye of 
a father was fixed upon them ; they were their greetings 
that reached his ear, and that Divine smile that rested on 
his lips, that last sublime light, was kindled by their glance, 
their love, as well as by the Saviour's ineffable love. At 
that last moment those he had loved were still his own. 



THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. 




HERE are some who make light of the body. I 
am not one of them. 

It is an easy resignation, indeed, when it 
concerns ourselves ; a bitter grief when some beloved being 
is in question. 

There it lies, that poor body ; there is that face that I 
have looked at so much, the eyes which rested gently upon 
me, the mouth that spoke to me as no other will ever 
speak more ; there is the whole aspect — I knew not whether 
it were beautiful or not — which was my sun, which was 
my life. 

If my lips touch that brow ever so lightly, they meet a 
marble coldness there. Have you ever felt it sink down 
from the lips to the heart, that piercing, unnatural chill, 
unlike any other, that chill upon the forehead of the dead 1 

That body so sacredly cherished ; that poor body, here- 
tofore the object of such tender care ; — they take it from 
me now ! Strangers come, who bear it away, dig a grave, 
and lay it there; the earth is heaped up over it. The 
dust, the rain, the winter winds will all sweep over that 
grave ; and while I am sitting, sheltered, beside our hearth, 
while I am warming myself — he — he is lying low out there, 
alone, forsaken. 

Oh, this cry that eloquent lips have uttered ! — every 
funeral procession has extorted it from some heart in its 



THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. 277 

distress. It is not the cry of madness, it is the protest of 
nature and of reason. 

We were not made for this ; God had not created us for 
this ; the image of God was not destined to moulder into 
dust. We may be submissive, may check the rebellious 
words that rise to our lips, but our thoughts will follow 
those remains, will glide into that tomb, will open that 
coffin, and return with tidings which will tear our very 
vitals. 

During that last illness, while I possessed it still, one 0/ 
my deepest sorrows was to see that poor frame decline. 
When my anxious looks encountered those altered features •> 
when one of those ominous changes that one will not allow 
to one's self, suddenly burst upon me, I felt my heart sink. 
At such times, my face buried in my hands, my knees 
giving way under me, I fell down somewhere out of sight, 
more truly dying than that loved one in his very death- 
agony. 

The destruction of the body ! There lies the curse, the 
anguish of one who watches by a deathbed. 

And now that years have worn away, with their good 
days and their bad, do you know what it is that suddenly 
lights up the widow's faded face 1 do you know why she 
sheds these happy tears ? She has seen again — yes, like a 
lightning flash, some smile, some trick of feature, has ap- 
peared before her ; some gesture, some intonation, a stray 
note dying away as suddenly as it rose. With passionate 
energy she clasps one of her sons in her arms; he has 
looked at her in the way his father used to look ; he has 
said, as he used to say, " I am cold ;" he has shivered as 
he used to shiver. Or else it is some dream, a ray of light 
from Paradise which has visited her in the darkness of her 
night. Yes, it was his very self ; they were both walking 



278 THE HE A VENL Y HORIZONS. 

along some familiar walk in their little garden. There was 
nothing extraordinary about it, no transj)orts. In fact, it 
was as if they had never been separated at all. They 
chatted about one thing and the other, with a smile, a jest, 
as they might yesterday, as they might to-morrow. And 
when the widow wakes ; her lips do not part with a groan 
of desolation ; no, she has re-possessed herself of her loved 
one's image ; she will meet his own self again ere long ; 
she has gained strength to go on her solitary way. 

You call us Materialists. ' The flesh ! ; you disdainfully 
murmur. These remains that our heart so follows, you 
return them to their dust without a regret j no place for 
them in your heaven tenanted only with wandering and 
impalpable shadows. 

If we have God on our side, we are disowned, we are 
well aware, by a lofty philosophy. This divides man into 
two parts : the one full of sin and misery rose from the 
earth and gravitates thither; the other, immaculate and 
heaven-descended, returns of necessity to heaven. The 
two have nothing in common. Their very essence decides 
their destination. There is no longer need of a God to 
raise us, of a Christ to redeem ; the fire takes what belongs 
to it, dust to dust, the soul to glory. 

This is the reasoning of many a philosophic system, 
many a heathen religion. 

God speaks a different language. He who condemns 
also absolves. He who pronounced that fearful sentence 
on our body, has redeemed that body. Men give it up to 
corruption, God raises it in glory. 

"What is it that Jesus taught ? The resurrection of the 
body. The Sadducees ridicule the idea, and put a hypo- 
thetical case to Him, in hopes of demonstrating its absurdity. 

What is it that the apostles announce ? The resurrec- 



THE RESURRECTION OF TEE BODY. 279 

tion of the body. An immortal soul is still granted to us ; 
it is considered admissible and generally received. And 
yet it is but a sad sort of immortality ; now mere nothing- 
ness, now a headlong rush through a succession of varied 
existences; but at least it implies a soul, an immortal 
existence, we are told to be contented with that. 

" What ! " say our opponents, " does not that satisfy 1 
Will nothing do for you but the resurrection of the flesh, 
the eternity of matter 1 Down with such madmen j lock 
up these publicans and sinners ; these men of nought, in 
love with such low and vulgar notions ! " The Jews threw 
such dreamers into prison ; the Athenians of the Areopagus, 
with their polite, refined culture, merely shrug their 
shoulders. Festus, in presence of Agrippa, cannot contain 
his contempt ; — " Paul, thou art beside thyself ; muck 
learning doth make thee mad." 

Such a deliverance as this could not spring spontane- 
ously from the heart of man. Man could harden his heart, 
but he could not grasp so great, so simple an idea as this ; 
entirely lost, entirely saved. Man will not stoop to 
identify himself with the instrument of his sins ; man will 
not accept a solidarity which proves to him his fall ; pre- 
fers rather to annihilate the creation of God. To leave 
one's own body a prey to worms ; to give up to them for 
ever the body of relatives and friends ! Yes ; tell him of 
that. He is strong-minded ; he will not wince. 

But to resume a body, his own body, in eternity ! 
Pshaw ! It is a low, vulgar idea ; it revolts him. 

Nevertheless, what man could not even imagine has 
been done by God. God, who saw us completely degraded, 
has completely restored ; restored the whole man, body 
and soul alike. It is for this reason that the Lord Jesus 
rose. 



280 THE HE A VENLY HORIZONS. 

Such, too, is the expectation of the saints. Paul sighs, 
waiting for deliverance ; to wit, the redemption of the body. 
He strives to attain to the resurrection of the dead. His 
full conviction is, that the same Spirit which raised Christ 
will also quicken our mortal bodies. And it is this very- 
Paul, whom certainly no one could accuse of self-indulgence, 
or idolatrous tenderness for his own person, who proclaims 
a new and startling truth, which many would be disposed 
to treat as blasphemous : "The Lord is for the body !" 

Would you know the secret of this problem 1 It is con- 
tained in one word — Holiness. 

While in the eyes of many the body is a mere vessel of 
dishonour, St Paul views it as the temple of the Holy 
Spirit. 

" Mistake of nature," say the wise of this world. " Per- 
fect work of God," reply the Scriptures. 

The body has sinned, has been punished accordingly. 
Punished ! Yes, but not cursed. 

In point of fact, were we disposed to argue, we might 
ask which is the true culprit, the soul or the body 1 Where, 
is it that the sinful idea arises 1 Would the soulless body 
be guilty of any excesses 1 Ask that corpse stretched out 
yonder ! 

But take the bodiless soul, on the contrary, or the soul 
in a body rendered completely inert, would it be of neces- 
sity immaculate? Would it be free from all pride, all 
hate, all falsehood, all covetousness ; because independent 
of its fleshy tabernacle, would it, as a consequence, return 
to the innocence of Eden 1 

The folly of such a supposition becomes at once ap- 
parent. 

You call those Materialists who honour the body. I 
hold those who despise it to be far more deserving of the 



TEE BESURREGTION OF THE BODY. 281 

name. Ceasing to view it as a temple, they use it as a 
tavern. 

We whom they call carnal respect it. Those members 
for which Jesus died, which will live again with Him, will 
again serve God on earth, must be kept pure from taint. 
You so-called spiritualists leave such humble anxieties as 
these to others : a dwelling so soon to be utterly destroyed 
does not, in your opinion, deserve so much care ; the lowest 
reptiles are welcome to it ; each passer-by may insult it, — 
never mind ; nothing will remain of it in any case. 

Oh, the coarseness of such a refinement as this ! Oh, 
how noble, how supremely holy, the simple plan of my 
God ! 

The resurrection of the body strikes you, you tell me, 
as unseemly ! I feel it sublime. It not only makes my 
heart beat with joy, but perfectly satisfies my moral sense. 

The annals of past ages shew me Christians who suffered 
in their body for the sake of their faith. I see martyrs 
steeping the Roman arenas with their blood; I see the 
fearful torches that lit the feasts of Nero ; I see funeral 
piles, and on them human forms slowly consuming ; from 
out the torturing flames I hear hymns of joy and praise to 
God ; nay, at the very moment I am writing, the veil of 
obscure circumstance cannot quite hide the privations, the 
watchings, the long journeys, the hard labour, that humble 
believers cheerfully undertake for the love of God. And 
shall the body which has suffered, sacrificed itself thus, 
have no portion in the kingdom of heaven ? 

Oh, yes! Its sure place is prepared there; no power 
can reverse the decree. 

He who will raise the whole creation, will raise the 
body. 

Resurrection ! Admirable word. Any other would 



282 THE HE A VENL Y HORIZONS. 

liave left some anxiety undispelled ; this word meets my 
most secret fears. 

Who is it that rises ? The dead man they laid in the 
tomb. 

However dark, however suffering my night may have 
been, each morning I rise. 

That morning my beloved will rise, he himself, and not 
another. It is not a new creation, it is a resurrection. In 
the place of the beloved departed, whose image my heart 
keeps so faithfully, God will not give me some unknown 
being ; no, God will raise up the one I love ; my hope will 
not be deceived. Amidst that dust and ashes — oh, omni- 
potence of the Divine compassion ! — a germ, visible to my 
God alone, encloses the vitality I believed for ever extinct. 
As a grain of corn, buried deep in some furrow, rises as a 
green fresh blade to cheer my eyes and heart ; so, clothed 
upon with a body, glorious, incorruptible, like to that of 
Jesus, who rose long before — so will the body of my loved 
one rise. 

April is smiling at the earth. Come, stoop down. 
Close to the old wall, do you see a broad leaf spread itself 
out like a canopy, beneath it a blue vase filled full of 
spring-tide fragrance ? It is the violet. Take hold of that 
branch, and break it : wood, mere dead wood, you say. 
Look closer, it reddens, it swells; here are pink petals, 
crests of balmy stamens, it is the blossom of the apple- 
tree. Take that other branch, dead too, like the other ; 
a cluster springs from it, golden, butterfly-winged — it is 
the laburnum. This other is burst open by a white can- 
delabrum, with scarlet touches — it is the horse-chestnut. 
Death made all these branches much alike. Infinitely 
varied in life ; each with its own special scent and sheen, 



THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY, 283 

they open out full to the sunshine, and cast their sweetness 
on the merry breeze. 

During one night, one shower, the brown field is trans- 
formed into a meadow, rifled by the bee, the butterfly, 
myriads of lately tranced and crawling things have changed 
into the winged hosts of the air. 

What do these miracles say to you 1 To me they say 
that a God of love will raise up our dead. 

" But how 1 with what semblance V 

St Paul will tell you. " Sown in corruption, raised in 
incorruption ; sown in dishonour, raised in glory." 

It was fragile and. abject once ; now Jesus clothes it with 
immortality and beauty. 

Beauty ! But those who were ugly, irredeemably ugly. 
And at once some luckless face comes and grimaces before 
our mind's eye. 

Yet, when we come to think earnestly about the matter, 
is there indeed such a thing as irredeemable ugliness 1 Do 
features only make the face, or is it not rather the soul 
that shines through it 1 

Take for example any misshapen face you will. De- 
prive it of mind, it is hideous, you turn away from it at 
once. But let an idea shine through that ugly mask, you 
look at it without repugnance. Let it be animated by a 
noble sentiment, the flame rises, lights it up, you are irre- 
sistibly attracted, you contemplate it with pleasure. Let 
love, a pure, generous love, cast its radiance over that face, 
(do not smile,) I tell you that face will become beautiful. 

You must surely have seen this wondrous transfiguration 
of which I speak. Yes ; there comes one hour, the only 
one, perhaps, during a whole lifetime, when the ugliest 
man or woman among us grows beautiful. An hour of 



284 



THE HEAVENLY HORIZONS. 



strong passion, elevating excitement ; an hour when the 
soul reigns supreme. And if that soul be beautiful, why, 
the face is beautiful too. You read eternal redemption on 
the brow, in letters of sacred fire. 

Again, death has revelations such as this. You who 
have seen a beloved one die, you are familiar with a trans- 
formation that yet did not interfere with his identity, that 
left him still your own. 

You remember well, do you not % the serene radiance of 
his expression. You beheld his face as it were that of an 
angel. Such was the aspect Stephen wore, when they 
stoned him as he knelt, and in the open heavens saw Jesus 
standing on the right hand of God. 

But when the last breath is drawn, what dignity, what 
ineffable serenity ! The body had suffered much. It was 
old, perhaps infirm, very wretched in every way. Death 
comes ; and an ideal youth, the youth of immortality de- 
scends upon the brow. 

There are flowers which only yield their fragrance to the 
night ; there are faces whose beauty only fully opens out 
in death. No more wrinkles ; no drawn, distorted linea- 
ments; an expression of extreme humility, blended with 
gladness of hope; a serene brightness; and an ideal 
straightening of the outline, as if the Divine finger, source 
of supreme beauty, had been laid there. You cannot tak6 
your eyes away. Dead, your loved one consoles you for 
the agony of having seen him suffer. His face, his inex- 
pressible grandeur, his smile, — all say to you, " Believe ; 
yet a little while, and thou shalt see me again." 

I am about to relate to you one of the strong emotions 
of my life. I found myself in the crypt of a church at 
Palermo. My friends and I had gone down into it without 
exactly knowing where we went, and walked, with more of 



THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. 285 

surprise than terror, between a double line of skeletons. 
And yet the spectacle was ghastly enough. Those perpen- 
dicular dead bodies, dressed in brown garments, that hung 
loosely around their bony limbs, with crossed hands, hold- 
ing some sort of shield, with their names written on it ; 
had fallen into dislocated attitudes, even more grotesque 
than horrible. The portals of our Gothic cathedrals have 
no representations that equal this. And yet we were not 
conscious of any terror. Death presented us, indeed, with 
his material aspect, his sad repulsive aspect, but the like- 
ness of humanity was still there. 

With one word, we felt God could call those dry bones 
to life again. 

The next chamber had a more appalling spectacle in re- 
serve. All along the walls — as in the cabin of some great 
ship — were ranged berths of equal length, and on these, 
dressed in gorgeous attire, hands gloved, lay the corpses of 
women, — with discoloured faces, empty eye-sockets, sunken 
features, hollow mouths, and wreaths of roses on their 
heads. There were hundreds upon hundreds of them, in 
all the pomp of their court dresses, and a nauseating smell, 
the cold, faint smell of death, rose from the vaults where 
the bodies were drying. 

In the presence of these faces with their beauty so in- 
exorably destroyed, of this ghastly satire on worldly vani- 
ties, I felt my blood congeal. But when at the end of the 
passage, lit by our guide's torch, a well yawned before us, 
and he lowered the red and smoking light he held to shew 
it better ; when I saw that nameless detritus, damp, pesti- 
lential, which overflowed the well's mouth, and when our 
guide said — " This is the dust of those yonder ; when they 
have lain there their time, we throw them in here," I re- 
mained almost lifeless with horror. 



286 



THE HEAVENLY HORIZONS. 



With my hand half plunged in those ashes, looking at 
what they had left on my fingers, a despairing doubt flashed 
blightingly across my soul. 

As I fled in haste from that fatal crypt, and mounted 
with unsteady step the stair that led us back into the nave, 
just where the daylight began to appear, I suddenly saw 
four letters carved on the wall, I. N. R. I. Then a voice 
sounded very near my heart — "Believest thou that I am 
able to do this?" 

Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews, yea verily Thou 
wilt do it ! 

From that day I have never for a moment doubted of 
the Resurrection of the Dead. 



PAET THIRD, 




THE WHOLE CKEATION SIGHETH. 

SIGH ! You all know it well, this sigh of sad- 
ness; this sigh of expectation. Not a breast 
that has not heaved with it ; no lips from which 
it has not often risen to heaven. 

We are ill at ease. All of us, whether we be happy or 
unhappy, have a burden to bear, the burden of human 
woes. There is no escape from one deep consciousness, 
intensified perhaps by the breathless hurry of our age, — 
that of the short duration of all earthly things. The best 
are soonest over, but all pass in exceeding haste, and we 
ourselves seem as though a mighty and resistless wind were 
sweeping us away. 

Formerly, tidings, whether good or bad, were slow of 
step ; we hardly knew what was going on at the other side 
of the globe till a year after the event. If blood had been 
spilled, the earth had had time to drink it up ; if tears had 
flowed, the sun had had time to dry them. The griefs that 
spoke to us from afar, left the heart comparatively unmoved. 
That is perhaps the reason why our grandmothers' laughter 
rang so freshly despite their fourscore years. 

Things are changed now. The tree of the knowledge of 
good and evil has bent its branches more within our reach, 
and each moment our greedy hands are raised to gather its 



288 THE HEAVENLY HORIZONS. 

fruit. And the result is not only an anxious restlessness, 
but a fund of bitter melancholy. 

Formerly, the general tone was one of gaiety. The note 
that an attentive observer would have heard prevailing over 
all others, was a crystalline serene note, echoing from the 
cottage to the palace. The note that vibrates over our 
earth at this present hour, in the village, town, or quiet 
country, is a wailing note, akin to tears, — is an immense 
sigh. 

Eegret for blessings lost, sadness left by past suffering, 
craving and quenchless thirst ; all these are included in it. 
But in many who are unconscious of it, there is also a 
latent aspiration after good things to come; an inextin- 
guishable need of deliverance ; an intense desire for per- 
manent light. And when I represent to myself men of 
this class, I seem to see noble but chained beings, who 
stretch out their arms to the skies, whence the Redeemer 
is to descend. 

You think me gloomy. Among you, I see some who lay 
claim to high spirits, are given to laughter, who feel no dis- 
couragement, no weariness, who protest that they are com- 
fortably settled on this sad earth of ours, and not by any 
means in a hurry to leave it. 

Yes, I know that there are two ways of looking at this 
world. Believe me, I too have hours in which earth seems 
to me young and beautiful. Spring days, when the spirit 
of life breathes upon the fields, when the sap mounts to the 
branches, when the foot treads half unawares on new-spring- 
ing grass ; when each nook and corner of the old wood is 
carpeted with periwinkle. There is a sudden efflorescence ; 
the bushes are great nosegays, placed here and there in the 
dingles ; the branches unfurl their leaves, not yet browned 
by the sun, or spotted by the fly. There are still indeed 



THE WHOLE CREATION SIGHETH. 289 

a few shabby weeds of last year which linger on by the 
brook ; a few dry, angular branches standing out from the 
young foliage, but who notices them ? Winter and death 
are fairly put to flight by spring. 

How delightful to inhale the aromatic perfume of the 
pine-trees, the breath of the primrose ! Sometimes a breeze 
comes to us from the gardens below, blending with all the 
rest the fragrance of the lilacs in flower. 

Let us stop a while, if you will, on the border of the 
wood. Stretched out at full length, there I listen. 

Who spoke of sadness 1 The coppice is full of woodland 
melody. The nightingale defying the sun, and when it 
pleases him to be silent, other strains are heard, other 
warblings of quieter character, simple symphonies, little 
hops from branch to branch, and two or three strokes of 
the wing that bear the songster to some more secret shelter. 

There, under the apple-tree, is a buzzing as of a hive, on 
the hawthorn-starred hedge are myriads of insects, in red 
attire, blue attire, some perfect mosaics, others gemmed like 
a royal casket. Amongst the grasses, with their delicate 
plumes, other treasures again, and the air is full of busy, 
winged swarms, brilliant as lightning. And all so happy, 
so healthy ; all celebrating in their own way the festival of 
life. 

Yes, but they all die, and when that thought strikes your 
heart, the festival is over. 

Then the woes of all the earth begin to rise like mist ; 
gradually they spread over the magic of the scene, they put 
out all its glories one by one. 

Oh, short duration of all things here below ! Of the 
spring freshness, soon consumed by the drought of sum- 
mer; of this May morning, that a return of cold winds 
will blight ; of these poor insect swarms, of which not one 

T 



290 THE HE A YENL Y HORIZONS. 

will survive to see another April ; of that labourer work- 
ing there ; of this young girl ; of the dwellers in that 
village, with its peaceful smoke from cottage chimneys ; 
the dwellers in yonder town, with its ancient towers. Fifty 
years, sixty, eighty at most, and all, from the rosy infant 
just learning to steady its little feet on its mother's knee, 
to its grandmother, whose head shakes, as leaning on her 
staff she slowly moves along ; all will be laid in the dust. 
On earth, in the place that knew them once, a new genera- 
tion will rise, with its nurslings and its graybeards in their 
turn. That generation, too, will be cut down and laid low; 
and the next, and the next ; and death will be always, 
always the same strong reaper, rising early, the only one 
who sees others pass away, and himself passes never. 

Do you remember that story of Musaeus, so sad beneath 
its playfulness, full of such bitter irony under the disguise 
of mirth 1 

The genius of the Hartz, Eiibezahl, a monarch whose 
kingdom extends to subterranean depths, met, one fine 
day that he wandered through the woods, with the daughter 
of the prince of the country. To fall in love with her, to 
seize her as she slept, to dive down with her into the 
bowels of the earth, to place her gently in the fairy gardens 
there, beside the fountain which sparkled in the gas-lights 
burning all round, — this was the work of a single moment. 
The princess awakes, a little startled, of course, at first ; 
walks about, admires as well as wonders. Everything is 
splendid ; a novel kind of poetry broods over the whole 
region. Soon she discovers that she is loved; and for 
some days this new feeling — which she, however, does not 
share — suffices to divert her. But one morning she chances 
to remember the sun, to remember her father, her mother, 
ber young companions. She begins to weep; an unbounded 



THE WHOLE CREATION SIGHETH. 291 

ennui takes possession of her ; a little time, and evidently 
she will die. Here is our genius in a pretty dilemma ! He 
is too selfish to restore the princess to the place from whence 
he took her. To carry off the king, the queen, and their 
court would be too troublesome a measure ; and, moreover, 
subterranean genii are very solitary in their habits. What 
is to be done 1 Eureka ! Our genius has hit it ; and 
while the princess sits in her apartments, her head buried 
in her cushions, breaking her heart, and insensible to all 
that so lately pleased her, Eiibezahl appears before her 
with a basket of turnips in his arms. He places the basket 
at her feet. The princess, who has been slyly looking at 
him the while, finds the present a very homely one. 
"Princess I" says the genius, "wave this wand." 
He bows low, and retires. The princess carelessly passes 
the wand over the turnips. Oh, prodigy ! Her father, 
his majesty the king himself, sceptre in hand ; her mother 
the queen, crown on head ; and her brothers, sisters, the 
court ladies, the chamberlain, the maids of honour ; even 
the grooms, even the turnspits ; — every one, in short, except 
a certain handsome young knight, whom Master Eiibezahl 
had his own reasons for leaving in the lurch ! 

What embraces, what narrations, what festivals, in the 
enchanted gardens ! Only, about midday the king, the 
queen, the ladies, young and old, seem to grow a little 
languid. Let us rest. They all go in, and luncheon is 
prepared. But, strange to say, instead of being recruited 
by it, the august personages grow more and more exhausted. 
You would say that years are suddenly heaped upon their 
brows ; every moment wrinkles deepen ; voices become 
cracked; steps grow slower ; forms shrink; backs arched; 
old age is coming on. A few moments more, and the 
whole court, so brilliant a while ago, will be nothing better 



292 THE HEAVENLY HORIZONS. 

than an hospital for the aged ; tottering steps, little quiver- 
ing coughs all round ; and when the needle has completed 
its circle, all turned again to turnips, — poor, withered 
turnips, will lie scattered on the floor. 

As to the reception the genius got the next morning, 
when he came running in, basket in hand, the bursts of 
tears, the indignation, — we have nothing to do with these. 
We stop at the turnips, striking image of our short dura- 
tion. I find it terribly, poignantly true. 

Everything dies, and on this spring morning, if I lay my 
ear to the ground, I seem to hear, from every point of the 
compass, the heavy step of men who carry a corpse to its 
burial. Cries of pain rise from this Eden of ours. They 
come from the forest glade, where the hawk pounces upon 
some quivering thing ; from the village, where the peasant 
takes the new-born lamb from its mother ; they come still 
more from cities, — clamours, sinister laughs, slaughtered 
cattle, sobs, threats, men who kill, who are killed ; tears of 
those who refuse to be comforted ! And those who do 
not cry out, whom we do not hear, are those who suffer 
most. 

Have you ever travelled rapidly through the country on 
a summer night 1 The cool breeze played round you, laden 
with the perfume flowers give out after sunset; your glance 
was raised, was lost in the infinite sky, amid its number- 
less stars. Half dreaming, you hardly seemed an inhabit- 
ant of earth ; and yet the earth was exquisite, ideal in its 
beauty. All at once, as you pass through a village, you 
see one little window with a light burning. The other 
cottagers are asleep, — here there is watching. What is it 
that watches ? Happiness 1 No ! A mother bending over 
the cradle of her sinking child ; a wife standing pale by 
the couch on which her husband is dying ; two men cower 



TEE WHOLE CREATION SIGHETH. 293 

ing over the hearth, and on the bed a body stiff and cold, 
which they will carry to the graveyard to-niorrow. 

Even the happy have secret griefs which their lips will 
never utter. Corroding anxieties, hidden terrors, fatal dis- 
coveries made in the nature of their loved ones, — all these 
dumb sorrows, but not the less devouring. 

Fly from our civilised countries; go to the centre of 
Africa, what do you find there 1 A sandy desert so steeped 
in blood, such wholesale massacres, that travellers of every 
creed call those negro-lands the kingdom of Satan. 

On their coasts, caravans of slaves, with halters round 
their necks, beaten, bartered, piled on one another between 
decks, exposed to sale, dragged off to plantations, married, 
unmarried, at their master's will, dying under the lash. In 
Pagan isles, wars, massacres, cannibalism. In China, 
Persia, India, refined cruelties, of which our nerves cannot 
bear the recital. In every latitude, human brutality, tak- 
ing advantage of the helplessness of dumb animals, cowardly 
cruelty, or cruel kindness ! 

This is our world. 

But there is something more heartrending still, because 
concerning us more closely, and that is our own inherent 
selfishness. Mght and day, it poisons our souls, taints 
our affections. We are selfish, proud, envious, covetous. 
Cold to others, even to those we believe that we love ; we 
are vitally interested only in ourselves ; and even this 
interest is unwise, for we are often guilty of our own ruin. 

Alas ! who has not felt a keen self-abkorrence, who has 
not had cause for it? Do you know that shame that 
comes over us when we see ourselves as we are, and that 
unspeakable sorrow at finding that year added to year 
leave us but what we were, having gained no virtues, lost 
no faults ? 



294 THE HEAVENLY HORIZONS. 

Or have you duly measured your own powerlessness ? 
Have you felt how narrow the walls of your prison? 
Have you wrestled with your thoughts, and been bruised 
in the encounter? Do you know what it is to touch 
without grasping, to be strong enough to combat but not 
to overcome, capable of feeling, but not of expressing what 
you feel 1 

And yet you do not sigh, you want nothing more ! 

As for me, from my heart there ever rises an unutterable 
groan. The world, as it is now, does not satisfy me, still 
less do I satisfy myself. Creation suffers and laments 
with me. St Paul expresses this mighty woe in one strong 
word — " travaileth with pain." 

What is that we are looking for — Death 1 It is here, 
taking us all away at our appointed hour. Death is a 
curse, it sweeps the earth bare, but cannot transform it. 

Is it the last judgment, the awful hour, that even the re- 
deemed of the Lord cannot contemplate unmoved 1 — The 
judgment crushes the guilty ; but creation is not saved. 

Is it the final destruction, the devouring fire predicted 
in Scripture 1 — This will destroy the earth, but will not 
restore its innocence or its beauty. 

Is it the new heaven and the new earth ? — But it is this 
world that has suffered, and to it special promises have 
been made. The whole creation plunged in misery, the 
oppression of the poor, nature fallen from its first estate — 
ail ask for something beside, claim some other promise, 
wait for something more ! 

What is that creation hopes for ? — For its deliverance. 
For what does it sigh 1 — For its restoration. What does 
it wait for 1 — For Jesus, the King ! 

He will come again ! This cry echoes throughout the 
Scriptures. 



THE WHOLE CREATION SIGHETH. 295 

He will come again ; He who publishes liberty to the 
captives, and crushes Death beneath His foot. He will 
come again. With Him will come purity, love, the era of 
perfect blessedness foretold by the prophets. 

The messengers of the Lord in all times speak to us of 
a sanctified world singing praises to God ; we only know 
a sinful world, hurling complaints and blasphemies against 
Him. Happiness overflows the earth of which they speak. 
Our earth is the seat of desolation. They tell us of times 
of refreshing : our times are times of exhaustion. Peace, 
love, exceeding great joy here on earth, both with God and 
our fellow-creatures ; these are promised ; and, behold, wars 
ravage, tears inundate our world, sorrow for the dead 
draws her dark veil round it, the angels as they pass it in 
their heavenward flight hear a murmur of plaintive cries, 
angry voices, and mad laughter, sadder still than tears. 

From age to age generations of believers have been laid 
in the grave, their faces turned to the east ; and each, in 
dying, has left behind the sublime watchword, Thy king- 
dom come ! 

Yea, Lord, Thy kingdom come ! Scoffers, indeed, may 
laugh. Where is the promise of His coming? they say. 
" Since the fathers fell asleep all things have gone on the 
same." 

Thy kingdom come ! We have nothing else to answer, 
nothing else to ask. 

Thy kingdom come ! It is at once a prayer and a 
pledge. He who told us thus to pray is He who will 
surely come. 

If, hearts big with love, hands clasped, if with strong cry- 
ing and tears, the whole earth were to raise this burning 
aspiration to the skies — oh, I believe that the Lord would 
hear, I believe, indeed, that the Lord would come. 




THE COMING OF CHRIST. 

HE whole primitive Church expected the coming 
of Christ, and believed in His temporal reign. 
This belief, so strong and firm in apostolic times, 
faded in proportion as faith lost its early simplicity. Men 
took to materialise precepts and spiritualise prophecy, and 
thus truth got modified on both sides. 

I am one who take the promises in a literal sense. I be- 
lieve with all my soul in my Saviour's coming. I believe 
that our earth will witness the scenes described by the 
prophets, and I have drawn my conviction from the study 
of the Bible. 

The Lord comes ! As the lightning shining from the 
east to the west, so is the shining of the Son of God. He 
comes surrounded by His redeemed, by myriads of angels, 
comes as conqueror to claim His crown. 

The hour has struck, the souls of the elect have put on 
their glorified bodies. God's power has done this. In the 
same moment the faithful who still live have been conscious 
of a marvellous transformation. It is not death; it is 
rather the casting off of a chrysalis covering. In the 
twinkling of an eye, incorruption has triumphed over 
corruption. 

Do you realise this moment, this coming, this object of 
faith, now beheld from far, as actually come to pass 1 

Yes, it is true ; my imagination is not at work, my eyes 
see. It is indeed Jesus my Lord. This is He who had 



THE COMING OF CHRIST, 297 

pity on me ; who suffered for me ; whom I love with all 
the strength of my souL My breast expands with a divine 
breath, each moment I love more, and feel that I am more 
beloved. My God ! oh, to prostrate myself before Thee ! 
to adore Thee ! It is as though a sun had risen within my 
heart. At one glance my eye has taken in the thousand 
thousands in Thy train. My dear ones, there you all are ; 
you indeed, you living, you for ever mine — all of us the 
Lord's. But yesterday, I laid your bodies in the earth, 
but yesterday I wandered alone, losing myself in the 
immensity of my sorrow, and now you are here, my hands 
touch you, you will not die any more. If God's arm did 
not sustain, surely man would founder in this ocean of 
bliss. 

The rest of the dead live not again, says the Scripture, 
till the thousand years are over. Christ's risen elect, to- 
gether with the nations living at the time, people our 
regenerated earth. 

Israel has seen the One that hung upon the cross, come 
down from heaven ; Israel has beat his breast and gathered 
round the King of Glory, his King. 

Then an act of incalculable importance is accomplished. 
The angel who has the keys of the pit seizes upon Satan, 
throws him into the gulf, and sets a seal upon him. 

Peace is made on earth. No more wars, no more 
wrongs ; a law of love easily obeyed ; a hosanna of all 
creation. 

Let us pause for a moment. I want to breathe this new 
air, and to open out my soul to this light. 

Satan bound. Do you comprehend the importance of 
the fact % 

There is in the Bible a narrative which gives a lively 
representation of Satan's work among men. 



298 THE HEAVENLY HORIZONS. 

Joshua, the High Priest, is standing "before the Lord. 
On his right hand a dark form rears itself, standing too — • 
Satan — to resist him. 

I know it well, that intercession which Satan resists. 
Witty men have ridiculed it; they have described that 
grotesque medley of serious and frivolous thoughts ; have 
held up to us in raillery, — that cry of disquieted hearts, 
disguised by the verbiage of vanity. Possibly Satan does 
not resist them when they pray. But we poor creatures 
whom he tortures, we who would fain believe, and who 
hear him whisper sceptical words in our ear ; we who would 
love, and feel his arid breath pass over our hearts ; we 
who want to concentrate our minds on God, and before 
whom Satan displays the most paltry of earth's toys ; we 
who wrestle unto blood, torn, often overcome by him ; wo 
who rise battered from our fall, and lift to our Father 
maimed and trembling hands; we who know that our 
enemy is there, always there, even to that death-bed by 
which He stays to watch us ; why, to be freed from Satan, 
the great resister, the unpitying adversary — this for us is 
the crowning deliverance. 

No more barriers between Jesus and the nations; no 
longer an accuser between the soul and God. 

If original sin remain, the tempter no longer aggravates 
it ; if the old leaven be still there, Satan is not there to 
make it rise. 

We had need of faith ; those happy ones have sight, joy, 
harmony, everything to lead them to give their heart to 
holiness. 

Oh, I can understand that hymn of rapture which marks 
our earth's course through the skies. The ground is moved, 
the forests clap their hands, the streams fertilise the sandy 
wastes, the rose blooms in the desert. No more desolate 



THE COMING OF CHRIST. 299 

places, no more broken hearts, we hear no longer the lion's 
roar, the shrieks of the slaughtered are changed to songs 
of thanksgiving. The Lord's alliance with His creatures 
glorifies the universe. 

You are shocked at this ! Such a scheme seems to you 
unworthy of God who is a Spirit. For my part, it leaves 
me penetrated with reverence, admiring reverence. With- 
out this restoration of all things there lacked one ray of 
my God's perfect glory. 

It well beseems the Creator to re-establish His work in 
its pristine beauty ; to restore to it the lustre it possessed 
when He spake the word and it was made. It becomes 
His power to snatch it entire from the grasp of Satan. It 
befits His glory to display it radiant once more; more 
touchingly beautiful, because it has known suffering ; more 
precious, because Jesus has died for it ; more firmly rooted 
in holiness, because it has struggled to recover it. 

You would have this earth in which God has taken de- 
light, left by Him to perish under the curse ; you would 
have Him to leave this triumph to Satan; not so, the 
rebellious angel shall not occupy it. From the depths of 
the abyss he will see the earth renewed, the true Monarch 
govern the kingdom he, Satan, had for a season usurped ; 
the child of God serve Him in this enlarged Eden ; the 
delivered creature willingly obey man; murders and 
lamentations cease ; the restoration of all things be accom- 
plished. Satan will see all this. If he did not see it, if 
we did not see it, Satan would have gained some advan- 
tage in the conflict ; he would have successfully resisted 
God. 

And now, tell me, do not you find such a restoration 
sublime % Does it not seem to you worthy of the Lord, 
this restoration of a world lost by the madness of man ; 



300 THE HE A YENL J HORIZONS. 

tormented by the rage of the great enemy, saved by the 
very Son of an offended God % 

The mountains of Judea have beheld Thy cross, Jesus, 
Thou Holy of Holies ; the walls of Jerusalem have heard 
the shouts of the maddened crowds that dragged Thee 
from Caiaphas to Pilate ; G-ethsemane has drunk Thy 
blood; Golgotha has echoed with the mocking laughter 
of the Roman soldiers; the sighs of Thy agony have 
passed over this land. Thy own country, Lord, the land 
of promise, shall see thy triumph; and stirred to its 
inmost depths, shall break forth in a cry of love and wel- 
come. 

In east and west, the children of this land have led a 
painful life. They have been mocked, trampled upon, till 
at times even they doubted, despaired of themselves and 
Thee. The earth that saw them so wretched, so prostrated 
beneath the hatred of the world, shall see them humble 
still, but radiant with joy, surround their God who reigns 
in the midst of them. 

Oh, the tears of thy mourners, Earth ! the lonely steps 
of those who walked among thy tombs ! Thou who hast 
swallowed up generations of cherished beings; and to 
those who asked of thee their dead, hast shewn thy dust 
as sole reply. Thou wilt restore them all, eternally young 
and happy ; they will deck thee like a burst of new flowers ; 
two and two, in families, in companies, they will walk 
again, singing with joy, on the sites they loved. 

The beasts of thy forests ; all that move in solitudes 
unknown to men; all that swim in the abysses of the 
deep, — used once to tear each other to pieces. A sound as 
of some pillaged town ; a nameless sound, which, as we 
listen to it, fills the soul with terror, rose incessantly from 
tliy whole surface. Then they who listen will hear a hymn 



THE COMING OF CHRIST. 301 

of deliverance burst forth from mountain and plain, and 
the waves of ocean will repeat it to their shores. 

Thou thyself, curse-stricken Earth ; thou whose breast 
cracks at the equator beneath the breath of the simoom ; 
whose barren poles are crushed beneath icebergs, — thou 
shalt blossom out fair and fresh, younger than in the days 
of Eden. Thou hast borne our rebellion and our woe 
through the immensity of space ; thou shalt then march in 
bridal beauty through a tranquil sky; blessed among 
worlds, bearing on thy surface the redeemed and the 
Redeemer. 

How will these things be 1 

I know not, but God knows. The least moral contra- 
diction troubles me more than mountains of physical im- 
possibility. 

How will the dead rise ? how will the earth, at the com- 
ing of the Lord, contain both the generations of risen 
saints and the generations of living men 1 ? how will the 
strange change of which St Paul speaks be effected? in 
what way will death, powerless over the former, still con- 
tinue its sway over the nations that are to exist at that 
marvellous period 1 in what way will Jesus govern ? where 
will His children dwell ? will there be some easy method of 
communication between earth and heaven? a marvellous 
ladder like that which Jacob saw ? 

Of all this I am ignorant. All this is my Father's busi- 
ness ; I am not at all uneasy about it. 

Nothing is too hard for Him whose seven fiats created 
the universe. 

He will come soon ! "Watchmen lost in the darkness, we 
send this cry of hope one to the other.* 

* Let me here quote an anecdote, related Ly the Count de Maistre. 
" Some one once said to Copernicus, ' If the world were constituted 



302 THE HEA VENLY HORIZONS. 

Yes, the morning stars will soon sing together the hymn 
which greeted the dawn of the seventh day: the bones 
that strew the ground will soon rise ; Jesus will soon re- 
turn. 

I shall see thee again, thou holy city, no longer depressed 
and trodden down by unbelievers ; I shall see thee glorious, 
I shall salute thee, queen of the world. Thy fountains 
will gush forth anew, Judea ! Under thy oaks, 
Carmel, the turtle-dove shall fly in peace, not fearing the 
cruel sportsman ! Desert, thy wide swamps shall change 
to gardens ; thy swords, turned to ploughshares, shall 
prepare thy rich harvests, country, everywhere called 
blessed ! 

You who weep, say, Are not your tears less bitter ? You 
who are tossed upon the open sea, do you not begin to dis- 
cern the shores of the land of life 1 

as you say, Venus would have phases like the moon ; she has none, 
however. What have you to say to that V 

" Copernicus answered, 'I have no reply to give, but God will be so 
good as that an answer to this difficulty be found.' " 

In fact, God was so good, that Galileo invented the telescope with 
which these phases of Venus were discovered; but Copernicus wa3 
dead. 

God will be so good, that we shall see the prodigies of His power ; 
but we shall then be living an eternal life, and shall only wonder at 
one thing : our own former difficulties, when we could depend upon 
the great God of heaven for their solution. 




NEW HEAVENS AND NEW EARTH. 

HE destinies of our globe are accomplished. The 
world that we knew has finished its course, 
Satan, loosed for a season, has waged his last 
war. Jesus has for ever vanquished him. Heaven and 
earth have fled away. There is no more time. The dead 
of every age are gathered together. 

The grave has given up its prisoners, the sea restored 
those it had swallowed up for thousands of years. Those 
who believed God, and those who blasphemed Him, those 
who supremely desired, and those who rejected Him, those 
who lived delicately, and those who ate the bread of afflic- 
tion, are all there, gathered before the Lord. Jesus has 
given up the kingdom to the Father. The Father, the 
Ancient of Days, has given all judgment to the Son. 

His eye reads the most hidden thoughts of the obscurest 
creature there. The past lives and speaks. Distant ages 
are present. Forgetfulness — that infirmity of our nature — 
is annihilated ; all that man has ever felt or done, all that 
remote centuries had folded up in their veil, all is exposed 
to fullest light. 

I know no word in our human speech that can express 
the solemnity of such an hour. 

And it will surely come. You will be there, so shall I, 
so will those we love. A shudder passes through my whole 
being. Jesus, Thou hast saved me. Thou, my Judge, 
Thou hast shed Thy blood to save me. Self-lost, by Thee 



304 THE HEAVENLY HORIZONS. 

redeemed, despite much faithlessness, I have sought to 
serve Thee. Nay, more, I have lived with Thee upon the 
regenerated earth ; I am Thine, so much is certain. But, 
beholding Thee so awful, Thou whom I knew so meek, — I 
feel my courage fail. And then my sins rise before me, 
not one is omitted ; I see them as clearly as though I were 
God himself. There are more, many more of them than I 
thought; they are uglier than I knew — I abhor myself. 
And they are all written down, and nothing that is denied 
shall enter the kingdom of heaven. 

Then a voice, that awful voice which, in the forest, 
maketh the hinds to bring forth their young ; that terrible 
voice which drives far from the presence of God whosoever 
has rejected His pardon ; that voice, the very same, fraught 
now with inexpressible tenderness, exclaims, " Come, ye 
blessed of my Father !" 

Does not a hallelujah burst from our breast, — Glory to 
God in the Highest ! 

The supreme joy of paradise will be to adore. It will 
be to tell over, with a boundlessly expanded comprehension, 
the sacrifice of Jesus, the love of the Father, the merciful 
action of the Holy Spirit. 

The last judgment is over. 

Behold the new earth, the new skies ! 

Death destroyed for ever, Satan for ever overthrown. If 
one may so speak, eternity now begins. 

You do not expect a poor human creature to reveal its 
secrets. But there are some shadowy features, some faint 
sounds, which have reached our latitudes, and these I will 
endeavour to describe. 

Heavens and an earth. 

That there should be heavens surprises no one. Heaven, 
purity, light, the dwelling of the Most High, every one 



NEW HEAVENS AND NEW EARTH. 305 

understands that in a measure, and anticipates it with" con- 
fidence. 

But an earth also ! Who amongst the "wise would ever 
have imagined that ? 

The beings whom the Eternal raised from the dust, those 
who have reigned with Him over the world, these were 
men, they are men still, they will always be so. God, who 
has decreed it, has supremely developed them, and placed 
them in conditions suited to their raised estate; a new 
earth. 

What will it be like ? I do not know ; I know only 
that God's tabernacle will be there, that He will wipe away 
our tears, that joy will reign, and I know that it will be 
for ever. 

When my eye, as it wanders over the country in summer, 
beholds it decked with so many charms, although destined 
to destruction, my thoughts take sudden wing to that pro- 
mised land, before whose mysterious adorning will pale all 
that we now call beauty. 

Oh, forests, with your fresh coolness; glades with tem- 
pered light, filled with winged creatures rejoicing in their 
life of a day ; mountains with grassy summits, majesty of 
peaks of snow ; ineffable charm of the valley ; blue lakes, 
entranced, looking up to and reflecting the sky, — my God 
made you what you are. It is God who will make the 
new earth. Our low prose effaces your poetry ; the hymn 
which rises from your solitudes is overpowered by our 
jarring voices; your flowers pass away; the flowers of 
paradise will be sweeter still, and will not fade, 

But God has prepared still more. 

Glory. 

This is a sublime promise, and I would not be ungrate- 
ful for any one of God's gifts. And yet, if I may dare to 



306 THE HEAVENLY HORIZONS. 

say so, whether from feebleness of nature, or conscious un- 
worthiness, glory dazzles me, does not thrill my heart. 

A sweeter certainty, a more intimate happiness, fills it 
with emotion, that of loving. 

To love my God. To have some lowly place in heaven, 
and from thence to see my God, from thence to love Him 
with enlarged capacities, delivered from all my coldness, 
all my insincerity. To love my friends in God, with an 
affection also enlarged, purified, bright, burning as the sun ; 
no fear of idolatry, no envy to corrode, no selfishness, no 
deceit. 

I have so poorly loved those I loved most. How often 
my affection has sunk beneath the weight of earthly cares, 
how often I have mourned my heart's powerlessness to 
cherish unqualifiedly. I have bruised myself against the 
limitations of my own love for others, as well as against 
those of the love of others for me. But now everywhere 
there is the Infinite, — in me, around me Infinite tender- 
ness, and this co-existing with infinite purity. 

I shall sin no more. 

Holinesss is henceforth the air I breathe ; if it failed, I 
should cease to breathe. I know no other now. I have 
left sin behind me ; it will no more sully the ground I 
tread, no more stain my white raiment. 

Oh, blessing of perfection ! To sound my own heart, 
and find only purity there! To move at will in spon- 
taneous obedience, as the bird floats, and traces wide circles 
in the luminous atmosphere. 

Have I not long enough dragged my chain? have I 
not groaned beneath the blows of a detestable tyrant whom 
I abhorred ? have I not spread out my captive hands to 
the Eedeemer ? Liberty ! liberty ! My breast dilates as 
with a fresh breeze from mountain tops. I feel myself a 



NEW HEAVENS AND NEW EARTH. 307 

king ; I am Thy child, my God ; Thy brother, Jesus ! 
Yes, it is indeed for this that I was born. 

Truth. 

A great genius died exclaiming, " Light ! more light !" 
His cry is ours. We believe, but there are moments when 
the truth that we have so abundantly received seems to 
melt away in our hands. The firmer we seek to grasp it, 
the more impalpable it becomes. We thought we had a 
strong hold of some solid thing; a mere smoke rises, 
fading out of our sight. This is only a nightmare indeed ; 
we wake out of it, but we wake shattered. 

At times, a terrible crumbling-away process goes on 
within us. Everything rocks to and fro, as in the countries 
shaken by volcanic fires. We want to lay hold upon God ; 
He escapes from us. We utter a groan of despair ; God 
hears that, — He succours us. But what a shock we have 
had ! how it has aged us, as it were ! We have, indeed 
won the experience of our Father's faithfulness ; but we 
have lost the simple confidence of childhood. We believe 
more firmly, perhaps, than ever ; but we know that dark- 
ness may overcast the brightest day. 

But there, under new heavens, on the new earth, the 
sun will shine with undisturbed brightness. No night, no 
eclipse ; and our eyes will meet it undazzled. 

To see truly, to think truly, to feel truly, — my heart 
beats high at such a prospect ! This breathless pursuit to 
lay hold of truth; this desperate struggle to retain it; 
faith, that supreme effort, that combat where the life of the 
soul is at stake, — all this is over, left far behind. My eyes 
behold; falsehood is annihilated; error vanished away. 
Truth ! thy radiance fills the sky ; thou art the medium in 
which I live. 

But thou shinest not for me alone; thou fillest the 



308 THE HE A VENL Y HORIZON'S. 

universe with thy glory. And this is another happi- 
ness. 

There are truths, my God, that I have believed on Thy 
word. Others denied them ; I obeyed them. I was ridi- 
culed, but I remained faithful to them. Perhaps for a 
moment I hesitated ; my heart sank. Nevertheless, know- 
ing whence they came, I took courage ; and, such as they 
were, followed them, despite the hue and cry. Yet, while 
following them, a doubt would cross my soul, — -was I, in- 
deed, right against so many? That truth, so scoffed at, 
contradicted, dying out it seemed, — was it truth indeed 1 

And now, behold it shines forth triumphant, irrefragable. 
It was no phantom ; it was indeed Truth. 

Out of all my past confusion, one confusion only remains, 
the shame of having defended the cause of truth with so 
faint a heart ; of having, I a believer, believed it so little. 

The justice of my God will shine forth. 

Do you remember those decrees of His that were wont to 
trouble you ? 

That God should punish me; that He should purify 
even to the point of mutilation, — does not surprise me. 
But others — that beloved son, that father ! And then the 
iniquities that have been inflicted ; the atrocities endured ! 
And again, such and such a decree, which, by taking from 
a wife her husband, from a daughter her mother, delivers 
them defenceless up to vice, and vice takes its prey. Those 
poor lives which spring up in a corrupt medium, as though 
they were devoted to degradation, and so soon become of 
necessity degraded. 

There have been seasons when I felt my mind darkened 
by a secret dread of finding God cold to our griefs ; in- 
different to our losses ; an inexorable Destiny, himself 
subjected to I know not what fatal general laws. But. 



NEW HEAVENS AND NEW EARTH. 309 

oh, I see now that this is not so ! Before, there was a 
dark abyss, which made us giddy ; now, there is light, and 
that light reveals the unfathomable love of God. 

Thy compassion, Lord, blended with Thy justice ; Thy 
justice throbbing with tenderness, — these we shall see, 
these the universe will see. Not one accusing sigh will 
rise up to Thy throne. 

And that justice will illumine many an unappreciated 
brow. Many flowers, the exquisite beauty and perfume of 
which were unsuspected, will open to that heavenly day. 
Those who were reviled or unnoticed, will shine perfect 
in beauty, and as we see them, our hearts will glorify 
God. 

Knowledge shall be done away. 

Even so the dawn is extinguished by the sun that bursts 
forth in the east. 

Nothing will perish that was noble, generous, full of holy 
grace and poetry. Let us prepare our souls like golden 
vessels destined to hold this nectar, the knowledge of the 
Divine perfection. 

There will be music there. No harmony here below ; 
not even those marvellous strains, chanted by instruments, 
repeated by our human voices, which make us weep as 
though coming to us from the land of the blest ; not even 
those modulations spreading from sphere to sphere, infinite 
in sadness, infinite in joy ; not even this glory of the ideal 
can give any idea of the harmonies with which heaven will 
echo. 

The secrets of creation, the plans of God revealed ; 
harmonies more touching still, — it is in these that our 
thirst of knowledge, ever satisfied, never sated, will at 
length be quenched. 

We shall be active. 



310 THE HEA VENLY HORIZONS. 

The angels are so; Jesus is so. Active without a 
struggle ; active without exhaustion. 

Have you not known rare and transient hours of work, 
when your mind moved freely amidst its own creations % 
As fast as the thought arose, it was shaped fittingly, and 
clothed, sometimes in a garment with graceful folds, some- 
times in one of austere simplicity, but always the idea was 
ennobled by its expression. 

That was done without difficulty. The angel, at Eden's 
gate, had lowered his flaming sword. You wandered — 
brow all light, heart all gladness — in a world where all 
activity was delight. What ! there are men who sow in 
tears, there are ploughs which tear the earth's breast ! 
You could not realise it. 

A breath ; Eden is closed, the sword is brandished, you 
lie prostrate. Darkness over your spirit, your nerves 
spent, your words powerless, your thoughts still more so, 
and, if you struggle, a bloody sweat. 

Oh, then, how feelingly you remember the earthly para- 
dise ! But heaven has in store for us delightsome labours, 
easy as respiration, refreshing as dew, and to these there 
will be no end. 

A permanent state. 

This is the fulness of joy. My heart can rest in it. — For 
ever ! 

I have felt such bliss, that heaven, I have thought, could 
add nothing to it; lightning-flashes of adoration, love, 
truth, all combined ; but it was only for a moment, and 
the certainty that it would end, cast its dark shadow over 
it. 

But in the presence of my God, in His paradise there 
will be no end. 

The light will not fade, the heart will not fail, the Lord 



NEW HEAVENS AND NEW EARTH. 311 

will not hide His face ; nothing will pale, nothing will 
grow cold ; no defection will be possible, the full cup will 
never break, our lips never turn away. 

Eternal youth, eternal desire, eternal enjoyment. And 
the essence of this eternity — love. 

We will go no further. I bow me down. Such bright- 
ness makes my eyelids droop. My voice falters and fails. 
Prayer alone, thanksgiving, the sigh of an humbled spirit, 
intercession for those who weep — these fill my heart, and 
rise from it without words. 

Let us pause. It is good to be here ; this is the gate of 
heaven. 



THE END. 



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